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DAVID  URQUHART 


;,-/^  '&  ''liha-fth  -K- 


JJdiul  I  Iinii/uirt 


DAVID    URQUHART 

SOME  CHAPTERS  IN  THE  LIFE  OF 
A  VICTORIAN  KNIGHT-ERRANT 
OF     JUSTICE     AND     LIBERTY 


BY 

GERTRUDE     ROBINSON 


WITH     AN     INTRODUCTION     BY 

F.    F.    URQUHART 

FELLOW  OF  BALLIOL  COLLEGH 


BOSTON  AND  NEW  YORK 

HOUGHTON    MIFFLIN    CO. 

1920 


PRINTED   IN   GREAT   BRITAIN 


'J! 


DeDicatcO 

TO   THE    MEMORY    OF   THE 

MEN   AND   WOMEN   OF   THE   FOREIGN   AFFAIRS    COMMITTEES 

AND    OF   ALL    THOSE 

LOYAL    AND    SELF-SACRIFICING    FRIENDS    OF    DAVID    URQUHART 

FROM   WHOM   HE    EXPECTED   SO    MUCH 

AND   IN   WHOM 

HE    WAS   NOT    DISAPPOINTED 


PREFACE 

This  study  of  a  great  though  little-known  personality  of 
the  last  century  is  not  presented  to  the  reading  public  as 
in  any  sense  an  adequate  biography.  It  may  be  regarded 
as  a  preparation  for  a  Life  which  still  remains  to  be  written. 
The  immense  mass  of  material  to  be  dealt  with,  involving 
all  the  most  vital  diplomatic  and  international  questions 
of  the  last  century,  would  have  made  the  preparation  of 
such  a  Life  a  matter  of  time,  and  could  only  have  been 
successfully  undertaken  by  an  able  historian. 

David  Urquhart  during  a  long  life  never  ceased  to  preach 
doctrines  and  make  claims  which  the  world  derided.  The 
last  five  years  have  set  the  seal  on  the  truth  of  those 
doctrines,  and  justified  many  of  those  claims.  But  the 
man  himself  has  been  forgotten.  It  seems  now  a  fitting 
time  when,  in  common  gratitude  for  his  life  of  toil  and 
self-sacrifice,  his  memory  should  be  revived. 

AH  the  manuscript  and  most  of  the  other  materials  used 
in  the  preparation  of  this  book  haVe  been  very  kindly 
placed  at  the  author's  disposal  by  Mr.  David  Urquhart, 
Mr.  Urquhart's  eldest  son.  She  owes  more  than  she  can 
adequately  acknowledge  to  the  help  and  co-operation  of 
Miss  Urquhart  and  Mr.  F.  F.  Urquhart  of  Balliol  College. 
Most  of  the  drudgery  involved  in  the  reading,  selection,  and 

vii 


viii  PREFACE 

tabulation  of  a  great  mass  of  almost  unarranged  corres- 
pondence was  undertaken  by  Miss  Urquhart,  as  well  as 
a  great  deal  of  necessary  research  at  the  Record  Office 
and  the  British  Museum.  Apart  from  this,  the  book  in 
one  respect  at  least  owes  whatever  psychological  interest 
it  may  possess  to  her.  Her  mind,  probably  unconsciously 
to  herself,  reproduced  in  that  of  the  author  the  impression 
made  on  her,  while  still  a  sensitive  and  imaginative  child, 
by  her  father's  unique  personality. 

Mr.  F.  F.  Urquhart,  in  addition  to  the  constant  and 
valuable  advice  and  criticism  which  he  gave  during  the 
whole  time  the  book  was  in  preparation,  made  himself 
responsible  for  the  whole  of  the  indexing.  To  him  the 
author  is  also  indebted  for  the  correction  of  the  proof- 
sheets,  as  well  as  to  Mrs.  V.  M.  Crawford,  who  with  her 
knowledge  of  the  technicalities  of  printing  has  been  of 
invaluable  help. 

Oxford, 

December,  1919. 


CONTENTS 


PAOK 

PREFACE      -  -  -  -  -  -  -        vii 

PROLOGUE  -  -  -  -  -  -  Xi 

INTRODUCTION  ...-.-  1 


PART  I.— THE  KNIGHT 

CHAPTER 

I.    WHAT   MANNER   OF    MAN    HE    WAS  -  -  -  19 

11.   URQUHART  AT   CONSTANTINOPLE  -  -  -        44 

III.    THE   EAST   AND    MEDIAEVAL   INSTITUTIONS  -  -         64 


PART   II.— HOW   HE  FOUGHT   FOR   JUSTICE   IN 

ENGLAND 

IV.    CHARTISM                      -                  -                 -                  -                  -                  -  81 

V.    FOREIGN   AFFAIRS   ASSOCIATIONS                      -                 -                 -  104 

VI.    THE   FORMATION    OF   THE    FOREIGN    AFFAIRS   COMMITTEES  -  120 

VII.    THE   AIMS   AND   WORK   OF   THE   COMMITTEES              -                 -  141 
VIII.   WHY     THE     COMMITTEES      SUCCEEDED      AND      WHY      THET 

FAILED        .--..--  166 

PART  III.— HOW  HE  WENT  TO  ROME 

IX.    URQUHART    AND    HIS    EARLIER   RELATIONS    TO    ROME              -  179 

X.    "  UNITED    ITALY  "                     ....                  -  194 

XL    URQUHART  IN   SAVOY             .....  205 

XII.    URQUHART'S   ATTITUDE  TOWARDS   THE   CATHOLIC    CHURCH  218 

XIII.  THE   APPEAL   TO    THE    POPE                  -                  -                  -                  -  231 

XIV.  THE   VATICAN   COUNCIL                          ....  250 
XV.    THE   LAST    CHAPTER                 .....  274 

APPENDIXES                ...--.  301 

INDEX             ..----.  323 

ix 


LIST   OF   PLATES 


DAVID   URQUHAKT,  MS.   CIRCA  69 


Frontispiece 

TO    FACK  PAGE 

-       20 


DAVID    URQUIIART,   ^T.    12   AND    63  - 

DAVID    URQUHART    SHORTLY    AFTER   HIS    MARRIAGE         -  -       121 

POSTER  ISSUED   BY  THE  PRESTON  FOREIGN   AFFAIRS  COMMITTEE        134 


CHALET  DES  MELEZES 


206 


PROLOGUE 

Then  the  Kings  having  denied  Christ,  made  new  gods  and 
idols,  and  exposed  them  to  the  sight  of  nations,  and  ordered 
men  to  fall  down  and  worship  and  fight  for  them. 

And  they  made  for  the  French  an  idol,  and  the}^  called 
it  Honour — and  it  was  the  same  idol  that  in  former  times 
was  called  the  Golden  Calf. 

x\nd  for  the  Spaniards  they  made  an  idol  and  called  it 
Political  Preponderance,  and  it  was  the  same  idol  that  the 
Assyrians  adored  under  the  name  of  Baal,  and  the  Philis- 
tines under  the  name  of  Dagon,  and  the  Romans  under  that 
of  Jupiter. 

And  for  the  English  their  King  made  an  idol,  and  called 
it  Sovereignty  of  the  Seas,  and  it  was  the  same  god  that 
was  formerly  named  Mammon. 

And  for  the  Germans  they  made  an  idol  which  they 
called  Weil-Being,  the  same  that  formerly  had  the  names 
of  Moloch  and  Comus. 

And  the  people  adored  their  idols. 

And  the  King  said  to  the  French:  "  Be  up  and  fight  for 
Honour." 

And  the  people  arose  and  combated  for  500  years. 

And  the  King  said  to  the  English:  "  Get  up  and  fight 
for  Mammon."  And  they  arose  and  combated  for  500 
years. 

And  so  the  other  nations,  each  for  his  idol. 

And  m  Europe  idolatry  flourished — and  as  the  Pagans 
had  first  adored  different  virtues  under  the  forms  of  idols 
and  afterwards  so  adored  different  vices,  and  then  men, 
and  beasts,  and  finally  trees,  and  stones,  and  figures,  and 
geometry,  so  also  did  it  happen  in  Europe. 

For  the  Italians  created  for   themselves  an  idol,  which 

xi 


xii  PROLOGUE 

thej''  named  Political  Equilibrium.  Now  this  was  an  idol 
which  the  ancient  Pagans  had  never  known ;  and  the  ItaHans 
were  the  first  to  invent  its  worship,  and  in  combating  for  it 
they  became  weak  and  stupid,  and  fell  into  the  hands  of 
petty  tyrants. 

Then  the  Kings  of  Europe,  seeing  that  this  idol  had 
exhausted  the  Italian  nation,  caused  it  to  be  brought  into 
their  States  and  propagated  its  worship,  and  ordered  men 
to  combat  for  it. 

After  this  the  King  of  Prussia  traced  a  circle  and  said, 
"  Behold  a  new  God  ";  and  the  circle  was  adored,  and  the 
worsliip  was  henceforth  called  Arrondissement. 

Then  came  three  Kings  whose  names  were  Blasphemy, 
who,  seeing  that  the  people  were  not  sufficiently  corrupted, 
raised  on  high  a  new  idol,  the  most  terrible  of  all ;  and  that 
idol  was  called  Interest.  That  idol  was  not  known  to  the 
Pagans  of  Antiquity. 

However,  all  the  people  adored  Interest,  and  the  Kings 
said:  "If  we  propagate  the  worship  of  this  idol,  it  will 
happen  that,  as  there  is  to-day  between  nation  and  nation, 
so  will  there  happen,  then,  war  between  town  and  town, 
between  man  and  man. 

''And  men  will  become  savages  again." 

Adam  Mickiewicz:   The  Book  of  Polish  Pilgrims. 

These  idols  have  all  been  broken,  and  a  greater  one  has 
now  taken  their  place.  This  Idol  is  Chance— he  is  pro- 
pitiated with  wave  offerings  and  burnt  offerings  of  laws, 
rights,  usages,  and  traditions — his  high-priest  is  Diplomacy, 
his  temple  was  Congress — is  Cabinet.  By  wJiispers  he  sears 
the  heart  of  man.  He  changes  all  things  past,  corrupts 
all  thuigs  present,  and  disposes  all  things  to  come.  He 
was  known  among  the  ancient  Pagans  as  Iniquity,  but  was 
considered  a  Demon  and  not  a  God. 

The  Portfolio  (New  Series),  vol.  ii.,  No.  V. 


DAVID  URQUHART 


INTRODUCTION 

It  is  not  easy  to  write  about  the  life  and  work  of  a 
man  who  set  himself  consciously  and  diametrically 
against  the  opinion  of  his  time.  A  biographer  has  but 
two  courses  open  to  him,  either  to  argue  that  in  im- 
portant matters,  at  any  rate,  opinion  was  wrong  and 
his  view  right,  an  undertaking  of  perilous  length  and 
difficulty,  or  to  "  explain  "  his  hero,  to  put  in  a  plea, 
in  other  words,  for  extenuating  circumstances.  The 
second  alternative  is  a  confession  of  failure,  and  no 
one  who  knows  and  admires  David  Urquhart  would  be 
so  poor-spirited  as  to  adopt  it.  Silence  would  be 
preferable,  silence  until  the  enemy  had  surrendered, 
until  opinion  had  so  changed  that  much  which  had 
seemed  preposterous  paradox  had  become  accepted  or 
at  least  acceptable. 

The  opinions  which  Urquhart  attacked  have  not  yet 
been  entirely  abandoned,  they  have  not  yet  been  trans- 
formed, as  he  would  have  said,  into  judgments.  They 
have,  however,  shifted  their  ground,  and  much  that  he 
wrote  and  said  would  be  better  understood  now  than 
in  his  lifetime. 

The  catastrophe  which  he  foretold  has  come  upon  us. 
It  may  not  have  come  from  the  quarter  from  which  he 
expected  it,  but  it  has  been  the  result  of  those  principles 
of  international  iniquity  against  which  his  voice  was 

I 


2  DAVID  URQUHART 

lifted  in  season  and  out  of  season.    The  purpose  of  this 
book  is   mainly  to  show  the   moral  principles  which 
underlay  his  many  activities,  and  it  would  be  impossible 
within  a  reasonable  compass  to  examine  his  convictions 
about  the  international  events  and  the  leading  states- 
men of  his  time.    Yet  principle  was  with  him  so  closely 
connected  with  facts,  so  much  of  his  life  and  energy  were 
spent  in  battling  against  Eussia  and  all  her  deeds,  that  it 
is  essential  at  least  to  show  that  his  whole  conception 
of  the  international  history  of  his  time  was  not  the  in- 
credible thing  it  seemed  to  most  of  his  contemporaries. 
When  they   saw  the   workings   of   popular   forces,   of 
national  movements  or  of  mere  chance,  David  Urquhart 
detected  the  deliberate  policy  of  Russia.     Russia  was 
to  him  a  Power  essentially  weak  and  inorganic  which 
had  yet  by  the  semblance  of  strength,  by  the  extreme 
intelligence  of  her  ministers,  and  by  her  unhesitating 
rejection  of  all  scruple,  been  able  to  pursue,  since  the 
days  of  Peter  the  Great,  a  policy  of  almost  uninter- 
rupted conquest.    Her  success  was  due  not  to  mihtary 
achievements,  but  to  diplomacy,  to  the  skill  with  which 
she  weakened  the  other  European  States  by  setting  them 
against  one  another  or  by  using  against  them,  though 
herself  the  most  autocratic  of  Powers,  the  weapon  of 
Revolution.     Every  European    State    was    threatened 
by  the  Russian  danger,  but  her  immediate  victim  was 
the   Turkish   Empire.     Once   established   on  the   Bos- 
phorus  and  the  Dardanelles  she  could  control  South- 
Eastern  Europe  and  the  Near  East,  she  could  interpose 
her  portentous  bulk  between  Europe  and  Asia.    The 
Mediterranean  would  be  her  path  to  power  in  the  West, 
while  in  the  East  she  would  threaten  the  Indian  Empire. 
Among  the  Turks,  however,  were  to  be  found  not  only 


INTRODUCTION  3 

great  military  qualities,  but  certain  convictions  on  the 
essential  connection  between  righteousness  and  public 
action,  between  religion  and  politics  which  had  been 
almost  forgotten  in  the  West.     The  Turks  were  therefore 
the  appointed  antagonists  of  Russia  because  they  were 
diametrically  opposed  to  her  policy  of  systematic  injus- 
tice, and  it  was  an  essential  article  in  David  Urquhart's 
creed   that   Turkey,   left   to   herself,    was   more   than 
a    match    for  Russia.     The   great    object   of    Russian 
diplomacy  was  therefore  to  secure  the  help  of  the  Powers 
in  disorganising  or  breaking  up  the  Turkish  Empire — 
and  this,  he  maintained,  they  had  frequently  done  even 
when  they  professed  to  be  acting  as  her  friends.     Con- 
temporary  history   was   to   him  a   tremendous   living 
drama  in  which  the  greatest  moral  issue  was  at  stake. 
Russia  was  the  great  adversary,  working  for  her  end 
by  the  gradual  demoralisation  of  Europe.     She  repre- 
sented the  principle  of  evil  in  international  affairs,  the 
attempt  to  exclude  them  altogether  from  the  domain 
of  the   Moral   Law.     Before   her   day   other  countries 
and  sovereigns  had  acted  unjustly.     She  acted  on  the 
principle  of  injustice.     And  she  worked  in  secret,  by 
her  hold  over  individual  statesmen  in  other  countries, 
by  the  press,  by  revolutionary  influences,  by  men  and 
movements  often  enough  intentionally  opposed  to  her. 
Her  power  lay  in  her  one,  single,  Satanic  vision  of  her 
aims,  while  the  feeble  men  in  whose  hesitating  hands 
lay  the  defence  of  the  Moral  Law  were  confused  by 
uncertain  aims,  by  hazy  views  of  national  justice,  and 
by  words  which  they  used  without  understanding  them, 
such    words    as    democratic    government,    ministerial 
responsibility,   nationality   and   the   rest.      "  Our   An- 
tagonist," Urquhart  wrote,  "  scrutinises  the  earth  for 


4  DAVID  URQUHART 

talents,  and  having  found  them,  disciplines  them  to  an 
order  which  has  never  been  matched,  and  inspires  them 
with  the  prospects  of  a  triumph  never  yet  attained. 
There  are  united  superiority  of  mind,  unity  of  system, 
permanency  of  purpose,  the  coercion  of  an  iron  rule, 
the  inspiration  of  a  golden  harvest  and  the  doubly 
fortifying  sense  of  confidence  in  themselves  and  con- 
tempt for  the  rest  of  mankind.  .  .  .  For  those  who 
manage  the  affairs  of  Russia  every  branch  of  science, 
every  field  of  knowledge,  and  every  motive  of  the  human 
mind  is  equally  possessed  and  mastered,  and  the  com- 
bination of  the  whole  is — Diplomacy."* 

To  the  immense  majority  of  his  contemporaries  this 
conception  of  Russia  and  of  the  character  of  her  power 
seemed  the  imaginings  of  a  distorted  if  not  of  a  diseased 
brain.  Have  we  any  reason  after  sixty  years  to  ques- 
tion this  verdict  ? 

To  begin  with,  most  men  would  admit  the  truth  of 
David  Urquhart's  passionate  conviction,  underlying 
all  his  conception  of  "  foreign  politics,"  that  there  was 
a  fundamental  antagonism  between  two  principles,  one 
which  required  in  the  acts  of  the  State  merely  the  pursuit 
of  a  policy,  the  other  which  demanded  before  all  else 
that  they  should  conform  to  the  eternal  principles  of 
justice,  and  they  would  agree  that  the  triumph  of  the 
former  would  mean  an  absolute  perversion  of  the  very 
basis  on  which  human  society  is  built.  Thoughtful 
men  had  long  realised  the  existence  of  this  antagonism, 
and  dreaded  the  consequences  of  the  apparently  growing 
indifference  to  all  issues  save  those  of  national  advantage ; 
and  the  war  has  opened  the  eyes  of  many  more  to  the 
fatal  consequences  of  um'estrained  national  ambition. 

*  Progress  of  Bussia,  Fifth  Edition,  px).  Ixv.-vi.  aud  Ixix. 


INTRODUCTION  5 

For  one  thing  we  are  beginning  to  understand  that 
the  national  movements,  which  were  welcomed  so 
enthusiastically  in  England,  contained  much  that  was 
evil,  at  least  in  their  methods.  It  was  the  custom  a  few 
years  back  to  admire  Bismarck  and  to  excuse  his 
methods  of  blood  and  iron  because  they  had  been  success- 
ful in  bringing  about  German  unity.  Immediate  success 
clouded  the  judgments  of  his  contemporaries  even 
in  England.  Indeed  the  whole  popular  verdict  on 
"  Nationality,"  which  Urquhart  distrusted  intensely, 
is  already  being  revised  in  the  light  of  increasing  national 
ambitions  and  national  hatreds. 

It  may  be  claimed,  then,  that  time  has  confirmed 
David  Urquhart 's  moral  judgments;  can  it  be  said  to 
have  justified  his  political  insight  ?  He  is  obviously 
open  to  the  charge  of  having  mistaken  the  real  enemy, 
of  having  made  Russia  the  Antagonist  when  it  should 
have  been  Prussia.  As  a  matter  of  fact  he  always 
insisted  on  the  close  connection  between  the  two  Powers, 
though  Prussia,  and  even  Bismarck,  he  considered  to 
be  the  tools  of  Russia.  The  international  policy  of 
both  countries  was  based  on  the  same  principle  of 
injustice,  the  difference  lay  in  the  means.  Russia, 
fundamentally  weak,  internally  divided,  was  driven  to 
use  the  weapon  of  diplomacy,  Germany  in  the  years 
after  '70  was  strong  enough  to  be  frankly  brutal.  In 
any  case  the  Prussianising  of  Germany  in  the  late  years 
of  the  nineteenth  century  does  not  immediately  affect 
the  historical  question  of  Russian  policy  and  influence 
in  the  period  between  1815  and  1870. 

Certainly  no  contemporary  historian  would  be  pre- 
pared to  accept  in  its  entirety  David  Urquhart 's  account 
of    the    international    politics    amid   which  he  lived. 


6  DAVID  URQUHART 

Perhaps  future  revelations  may  confirm  a  number  of 
his  convictions,  but  too  much  must  not  be  expected 
from  further  pubhcations  of  documents.  It  is  one  of 
the  difficulties  of  the  history  of  the  last  century  that  so 
much  of  importance  was  communicated  in  private 
correspondence  and  may  never  be  at  the  historian's 
disposal.  At  any  rate  all  that  is  possible  now  is  to 
point  out  how  mysterious  a  great  deal  of  nineteenth- 
century  history  still  remains,  and  how  in  a  number 
of  cases  increased  knowledge  has  only  deepened  the 
mystery. 

The  period  of  the  Congresses,  the  years  following  the 
Congress  of  Vienna,  has  been  the  object  of  much  re- 
search and  many  books,  and  yet  two  diametrically 
opposite  explanations  are  still  facing  each  other.  The 
explanation  more  commonly  accepted  by  English  writers 
makes  Metternich  the  soul  of  the  system.  In  the 
interests  of  "  legitimacy,"  of  the  counter-Re  volution, 
he  persuaded  Alexander  of  Russia  to  abandon  his 
liberalism,  to  throw  himself  into  the  Conservative  camp 
and  to  use  the  Holy  Alliance  for  the  purpose  of  suppress- 
ing revolutions  in  Spain,  Italy,  and  elsewhere.  The 
rival  theory  makes  Russia  not  only  the  inaugurator, 
but  also  the  motive  power  behind  the  Alliance ;  and  the 
object  of  Russia  throughout  is  to  promote  intervention 
in  other  countries  in  order  to  set  the  Western  nations 
against  one  another  and  to  profit  by  the  confusion. 
To  bring  about  intervention,  revolutions  had  first  to 
be  set  afoot,  and  writers  of  this  school  are  prepared  to 
show  that  Russian  agents  were  at  work  both  in  Spain 
and  Italy  before  the  insurrection  of  1820.  It  would 
seem  at  first  sight  incredible  that  a  country  like  Russia, 
the  embodiment  of  conservatism  and  autocracy,  should 


INTRODUCTION  7 

be  stirring  up  revolutionary  fires ;  yet  the  very  fact  that 
Russia  was  so  much  outside  the  European  system,  so 
remote  from  the  flame,  made  it  safer  for  her  statesmen 
to  promote  revohition  in  other  countries.    Sorel  has 
himself  pointed  out  how  Alexander  I.  contrived  to  be 
"  the   hidden   deity   of  the   Revolutionaries   while  re- 
maining the  public  god  of  the  Conservatives."     And 
what  Sorel  said  of  Alexander,   most  idealistic  of  the 
Czars,  is  only  what  David  Urquhart  said  all  his  life  of 
the  general  policy  of  Russia.     Certain  it  is  that  whether 
Russia  was  to  any  degi'ee  responsible  for  the  Revolution 
of  1820,  it  was  Russia,  and  not  Metternich,  who  first 
proposed  intervention,  and  it  was  Russia  who  at  the 
Congress  of  Verona  ultimately  forced  it  on  the  French 
Government  by  using  Chateaubriand.     As  it  turned  out, 
French  intervention  was  not  resented  by  the  Spaniards 
as  a  people,  and  the  general  peace  of  Europe,  which  a 
prolonged  war  in  Spain  would  certainly  have  destroyed, 
was  preserved. 

In  the  East  again  it  is  to  the  personal  influence  of 
Metternich  over  the  impressionable  Alexander  that 
Russia's  abandonment  of  the  Greeks  during  the  earlier 
years  of  their  rebellion  is  usually  attributed.  It  is 
pleasant  to  substitute  for  a  difiicult  study  of  facts  and 
documents  a  lively  discussion  of  Alexander's  character 
and  of  the  temperament  which  so  exercised  the  chan- 
celleries of  Europe,  but  in  Russian  history  the  direct 
influence  of  a  Czar's  personality  is  nearly  always  exag- 
gerated. The  real  control  of  events  has  generally  been 
in  the  hands  of  a  much  less  impressionable  minister. 
The  connection  of  Russia  with  the  Greek  Revolt  is  of 
primary  importance  in  David  Urquhart 's  life.  It  was 
his  first  great  lesson  in  the  power  of  diplomacy;  it 


8  DAVID  URQUHART 

convinced  him  of  the  ignorance  which  prevailed  in  the 
West  about  all  Eastern  matters.  The  scene  of  the 
drama  was  one  with  which  he  was  familiar.  He  had 
fought  for  the  Greeks  and  he  knew  their  detestation  of 
Russia.  He  had  lived  with  the  Turks  and  realised  their 
great  mihtary  quahties.  In  his  inquiries  into  the 
diplomatic  forces  which  brought  about  the  destruction 
of  the  Turkish  fleet  at  Navarino  and  the  Peace  of 
Adrianople,  so  disastrous  to  Turkey,  he  was  assisted  by 
a  strange  and  almost  unique  discovery.  The  Polish 
rebellion  of  1830  placed  the  Poles  for  some  time  in 
command  of  Warsaw,  and  there  they  found  a  number 
of  diplomatic  documents;  these  were  copies  of  despatches 
which  had  been  sent  to  the  Russian  Viceroy  Constantine, 
Nicholas  I.'s  elder  brother,  the  man  who  had  given  up 
his  right  to  the  throne  and  was  therefore  treated  with 
great  consideration  by  the  Russian  Government.  These 
despatches  were  ultimately  sent  to  England,  and  some 
of  them  appeared,  with  the  consent  of  the  Government, 
in  The  Portfolio,  edited  by  Urquhart  and  some  of  his 
friends.  To  the  casual  reader  these  Russian  secret 
despatches  do  not  contain  any  startling  revelations,  but 
every  here  and  there  phrases  are  met  with  which  bring 
out  the  point  of  view  of  the  Russian  ministers  and  are 
full  of  meaning  to  one  who  knows  the  facts.  They 
certainly  confirmed  Urquhart  in  the  judgments  he  had 
formed  about  Russian  policy. 

He  started  with  the  conviction  of  the  inherent  weak- 
ness of  Russia  on  the  one  hand,  in  spite  of  the  com- 
manding position  which  she  held  at  the  time,  and  of  the 
military  strength  of  Turkey  on  the  other.  Russia 
therefore  could  not  afford  to  attack  Turkey  single- 
handed.    It  was  not  sufficient  for  her  to  get  a  free 


INTRODUCTION  9 

hand  in  the  East  by  embroiling  the  Western  Powers 
with  one  another;  she  must  secure  the  help  of  one 
or  more  of  them  in  her  attack  on  Turkey.  This 
she  ultimately  succeeded  in  doing,  partly  owing  to 
the  sympathy  felt  in  the  West  towards  the  Greeks, 
partly  owing  to  the  very  fear  with  which  Western 
statesmen  regarded  the  independent  action  of  Russia 
in  the  East.  Canning  was  anxious  to  settle  the  Greek 
question  by  arbitration  between  Greeks  and  Turks.  If 
he  had  acted  single-handed  he  might  have  done  so,  and 
it  is  obvious  that  Eussia  feared  his  independent  action. 
She  therefore  threatened  Turkey  in  a  quarrel  of  her 
own,  disconnected  with  the  Greek  question,  and  Canning 
then  came  to  terms  with  Russia,  hoping  to  check  her 
by  working  with  her.  But  union  with  Russia  made  a 
friendly  settlement  between  Greeks  and  Turks  im- 
possible, and  step  by  step  the  English  and  French 
Governments  w^re  led  on  till,  without  declaration  of 
war,  and  while  they  still  professed  to  be  allies  of  Turkey, 
the  fleets  of  England,  France,  and  Russia  destroyed 
the  Turkish  Fleet  at  Navarino.  Russia  was  now  in  a 
position  to  attack  Turkey.  Navarino  had  given  her 
the  command  of  the  Black  Sea  and  of  the  ^Egean. 
Yet  in  spite  of  this  advantage  the  Russo-Turkish  War 
of  1828-29  would  probably  have  ended  in  a  Russian 
disaster  if  the  Sultan  had  not  been  persuaded  by  disloyal 
ministers  and  the  ill-informed  and  timid  representatives 
of  England  and  France  to  sign  in  a  panic  the  Peace  of 
Adrianople.  It  is  true  that  Diebitch  was  in  Adrianople 
with  a  Russian  army,  but  his  troops  were  dying  of  fever 
and  he  could  not  advance  on  Constantinople.  Behind 
him  there  was  a  Turkish  army  north  of  the  Balkans; 
another  was  advancing  from  the  west  under  the  Pasha 


10  DAVID  URQUHART 

of  Widdin.  The  destruction  of  Diebitcli's  army  seemed 
almost  inevitable  if  the  Sultan  had  held  out,  and  so 
signal  a  Russian  disaster  might  have  had  almost  in- 
calculable consequences.  Even  as  it  was  the  Poles  were 
able  in  the  following  year  to  keep  the  field  for  ten 
months  against  the  Czar's  armies.  The  victory  of 
Turkey  would  probably  have  meant  the  emancipation 
of  Poland  and  a  complete  and  wholesome  change  in  the 
history  of  Russia. 

An  inner  knowledge   of  this  phase   of  the  Eastern 
Question  not  only  strengthened  Urquhart's  convictions 
on  the  relative  strength  of  Russia  and  Turkey,  it  also 
confirmed    his    suspicions    about    Russia's    diplomatic 
methods.    Pozzo    di    Borgo,    the    Corsican,    was,    for 
instance,  just  one  of  those  able  foreigners  who  became 
the  most  efficient  servants  of  Russia.     As  an  ambassador 
at  Paris  he  had  a  great  personal  share  in  the  success  of 
the  Russian  policy.     Such  were  his  relations  with  the 
French   Court    that  at   one   moment   it  was   seriously 
proposed  that    he    should   be  appointed  French  War 
Minister.     A   more   enigmatic   position   still   was   that 
held  in  London  by  Countess  Lieven,  the  wife  of  the 
Russian  Ambassador.     She  was  at  different  times  with 
the  Duke  of  Wellington,  with  Lord  Grey,  with  Palmerston 
and  other  prominent  men  on  terms  of  intimacy  which 
seem  to  us  incredible,  especially  as  she  never  forgot 
that   she    represented    Russia.     It  was   at    a    private 
meeting   between   Canning   and   the   Lievens   that   he 
seems  first  to  have  abandoned  that  isolated  action  in 
the   Greek   question   which  Russia   disliked.     Countess 
Lieven's  own  point  of  view  is  perhaps  best  expressed 
in  a  postscript  to  one  of  her  letters  to  her  brother, 
written  in  the  winter  of  1828,  when  the  comparative 


INTRODUCTION  11 

failure  of  tlie  first  campaign  against  the  Turks  had 
astonished  Europe.  "  Defeat  the  Turks,  for  the  love 
of  God !  Europe  is  growing  insubordinate  since  it 
thinks  we  cannot  do  so." 

The  subsequent  history  of  the  Near  East,  as  Urquhart 
saw  it,  was  not  likely  to  diminish  his  sense  of  the  power 
and  danger  of  Russian  diplomacy.  He  saw  her  states- 
men use  the  rise  of  Mehemet  Ali  in  Egypt  first,  to  secure 
what  was  practically  a  protectorate  of  Turkey  in  1833 
and,  when  that  too  brilliant  success  roused  the  hostility 
of  the  Western  Powers,  he  saw  her  use  the  same  weapon 
in  1840  in  order  to  break  up,  with  the  help  of  Lord 
Palmerston,  the  Anglo-French  Entente  of  1830.  The 
crisis,  which  had  brought  England  and  France  to  the 
verge  of  war,  was  over  in  1841,  but  by  making  Mehemet 
AH  an  hereditary  Pasha  of  Egypt  the  Powers  which  had 
come  to  Turkey's  help  combined  to  inflict  on  her  a 
blow  more  serious,  perhaps,  than  the  ephemeral  pre- 
dominance of  an  over  mighty  subject.  The  success 
of  a  rebelhous  Pasha  had  been  a  fairly  frequent 
phenomenon  in  the  history  of  the  Ottoman  Empire, 
but  the  establishment  of  a  dynasty  in  Egypt  was  a  step 
towards  the  permanent  loss  of  that  province. 

The  Crimean  War  might  seem  at  first  sight  to  be  the 
fulfilment  of  David  Urquhart 's  ambitions.  Now  at  last 
England  and  France  were  united  with  Turkey  in  a 
war  against  Russia's  attempt  to  ruin  the  Turkish 
Empire  by  securing  a  protectorate  over  three-quarters 
of  her  subjects  in  Europe.  And  yet  this  war,  though 
it  began  with  a  Russian  defeat  by  the  unaided  Turks, 
ended  in  what  was  practically  a  drawn  fight  between 
Russia  on  the  one  side,  and  the  two  Western  Powers, 
Turkey  and  Sardinia,  on  the  other.    Sebastopol  itself 


12  DAVID  URQUHART 

was  never  taken  in  a  military  sense,  and  we  had  to 
have  a  clause  inserted  in  the  Preliminaries  of  Peace  to 
allow  us  to  use  its  harbour  for  the  embarkation  of  our 
troops.  It  is  hardly  too  much  to  say  that  the  prestige 
with  which  the  Crimean  War  endowed  Russia  gave  her 
a  decisive  voice  in  all  questions  concerned  with  the 
East  until  her  war  with  Japan.  It  is  a  period  full  of 
historical  mysteries.  Why  did  the  war  break  out  ? 
Why  did  the  Allies  when  they  were  at  Varna  never 
make  the  least  attempt  to  help  the  Turks  in  Silistria  ? 
Why  did  we  attack  Sebastopol,  almost  the  only  fortified 
Russian  port  in  the  Black  Sea  ?  Why  did  we  prevent 
the  Turks  from  helping  the  Circassians  in  the  Caucasus  ? 
Why,  during  the  whole  of  the  war,  was  Russian  trade 
allowed  to  pass  unmolested  through  the  Bosphorus  ? 
The  list  of  such  questions  could  be  extended  almost 
indefinitely.  The  Crimean  War  was  not  likely  to 
diminish  XJrquhart's  intense  suspicion  of  the  current 
diplomatic  methods  and  his  conviction  that  Russia 
had  agents,  whether  conscious  or  unconscious,  in  the 
ministries  of  Europe. 

To  most  of  his  contemporaries  the  maddest  thing 
about  David  Urquhart  was  his  belief  in  the  treason  of 
Lord  Palmerston,  and  it  is  most  unlikely  that  time  will 
ever  justify  that  belief.  Yet  it  is  now  much  easier  to 
see  how  a  man  of  Urquhart 's  knowledge  of  the  inner 
world  of  diplomacy  could  be  absolutely  sincere  in  such 
a  conviction.  Palmerston  is  certainly  one  of  the  most 
remarkable  enigmas  of  our  nineteenth-century  history. 
At  first  all  is  simple  enough.  A  representative  of  the 
ideas  and  prejudices  of  the  English  middle  class,  a 
man  without  inspiration  and  with  little  scruple,  yet 
eminently  efficient,  his  political  success   is  easily  ex- 


INTRODUCTION  13 

plained.    He  pleased  the  Tories  by  the  vigour  of  his 
foreign  policy,  the  Whigs  by  his  spirit  of  compromise 
at  home,  the  Radicals  by  the  support  he  gave  to  national 
movements   and  extreme  parties  abroad.    He  had,  in 
addition,  a  very  good  "  press,''  he  came  to  be  on  terms 
of   great   intimacy   with   Delane   of   The   Times.    The 
cheerful  optimist  of  the  cartoons  of  Punch  is  still  the 
Palmerston   of   tradition   as   he    was   the    Palmerston 
whom  most  Englishmen  knew  and  liked.     He  certainly 
enjoyed  the  fruits  of  popularity,  and  during  the  fifty- 
five  years  of  his  political  life  he  was  only  about  ten 
years  out  of  office.    Even  when,  in  1857,  the  House  of 
Commons  revolted  against  the  iniquities  of  the  China 
War  the  constituencies  returned  him  with  a  substantial 
majority.     His   importance   in    our   history,    however, 
depends  more  on  his  control  of  our  foreign  affairs  than 
on  his  Whig  leadership.     During  the  middle  years  of 
the  century  the  relations  between  England  and  the  rest 
of  the  world  depended  far  more  upon  Lord  Palmerston 
than  on  any  other  man,  and  to  the  Continent  he  was 
a  figure  very  unlike  that    of  the   genial   Whig.      To 
foreigners   he   seemed   arrogant,   offensive,   passionate. 
That  is  the  picture  we  get  of  him  in  the  letters  of  the 
eminently    moderate    Leopold    I.    of    Belgium.     The 
foreign  Liberals  he  alienated  by  his   bullying  methods 
even  when  they  profited  by  his  policy,  while  the  Con- 
servatives   could    explain    the    alUance    between    this 
English  aristocrat  and  continental  revolutionary  forces 
only  by  a  deliberate  bargain:  the  revolutionaries  were 
to  leave   England  undisturbed  in  return  for  support 
abroad.     After  all,  what  could  be  more  offensive  to  a 
foreigner    than    the    famous    "  Civis    Romanus    sum " 
speech  ?     A  speech   which   won  Palmerston  immense 


14  DAVID  URQUHART 

popularity  in  England.  It  apparently  claimed  for  an 
Englishman  in  a  foreign  country  the  rights  which  a 
Roman  citizen  enjoyed  within  the  bounds  of  the  Roman 
Empire.  The  wiser  men  of  his  time  realised  the  injury 
that  Palmerston  was  doing  to  the  peace  of  Europe  and 
the  position  of  England,  and  Peel's  last  speech  in  the 
House  of  Commons  was  a  grave  protest  against  a 
diplomacy  which  was  used  "  to  fester  every  wound,  to 
provoke,  instead  of  soothing,  resentments."*  A  study 
of  the  crisis  of  1840  when  Palmerston  shattered  the 
Anglo-French  Entente  and  brought  the  two  countries 
to  the  brink  of  war  would  confirm  every  word  of  PeeFs 
protest. 

It  is  extraordinary  that  there  should  be  no  adequate 
Life  of  Palmerston,  no  attempt  to  replace  the  partial 
portraits  of  more  or  less  "  official  "  biographies  by  a 
real  picture,  and  to  explain  the  contradiction  of  his 
character  and  career.  Passion  probably  accounted  for 
much.  He  had  real,  deeply  felt,  personal  resentments 
towards  the  rulers  of  other  States,  towards  Metternich 
and  Louis  Philippe,  for  instance;  and  even  towards 
other  countries,  especially  Austria.  But  such  personal 
resentments  do  not  account  for  everything,  and  much 
remains  in  his  foreign  poHcy  that  is  puzzHng.  Fortu- 
nately materials  for  a  real  biography  are  slowly 
accumulating.  Queen  Victoria's  Letters  and  Lord 
Fitzmaurice's  Life  of  Lord  Granville  have  revealed 
Palmerston's  attitude  towards  the  Queen  and  his 
fellow-ministers,  but  it  is  by  his  relations  with  the 
ideahsm  of  his  time  that  he  will  ultimately  stand  or 
fall.  Li  any  final  judgment  the  charges  brought  against 
him  by  David  Urquhart  with  such  intensity  of  con- 

*  Paiker's  Life  of  Peel,  iii.,  543. 


INTRODUCTION  15 

viction  will  have  to  be  considered.  To  Urquliart 
Palmerston  was  the  representative  of  the  great  Adver- 
sary, of  that  immoral  principle  in  the  affairs  of  nations 
which  he  identified  with  Russia;  and  he  was  prepared 
to  prove  that  in  spite  of  the  appearances  of  hostility 
Palmerston's  policy  had  always  in  the  long  run  been 
to  the  advantage  of  Russia.  Whether  this  was  so 
or  not  is  a  matter  of  evidence,  and  much  of  his 
criticism  is  of  the  highest  value.  But  it  is  a  long  step 
from  failure,  and  even  from  injustice,  to  treason. 
Urquhart's  whole  character  and  life  had  tended 
to  make  him  attribute  to  deliberate  purpose  much  that 
is  due,  in  the  actions  of  men,  to  passion,  or  ambition, 
or  mere  thoughtlessness  and  want  of  foresight.  He 
placed  Palmerston  on  too  high  a  level  intellectually, 
made  him  too  much  of  a  Satan,  and  did  not  recognise 
that  even  he  had  a  good  deal  of  "  Thomme  moyen, 
sensuel ''  in  his  nature. 

On  the  whole,  then,  it  may  be  said  that  Urquhart's 
judgments  on  the  events  of  his  day  would  be  listened 
to  with  more  respect  now  than  they  were  by  the  majority 
of  his  contemporaries,  and  that  much  still  remains  very 
obscure  in  the  diplomatic  history  of  the  last  century. 
Certainly  no  student  of  those  times  can  afford  to  neglect 
the  mass  of  material,  the  evidence  drawn  from  unex- 
pected sources,  and  the  startling  and  impressive  judg- 
ments which  are  to  be  found  in  David  Urquhart's 
writings,  and  in  the  reviews  or  papers  which  he  inspired 
and  to  which  he  contributed. 


PART  I 

THE  KNIGHT 

"My  soul  breaketli  out  l:or  the  very  fervent  desire:  that  it  hath 
alway  unto  Thy  judguients."— PsYtim  exix.  (Prayer-Book  version.) 

"  Et  custodiaiu  legem  tuam  semper, 
In  sseculum  et  in  sseculun  sgeculi. 
Et  ambulabam  in  latitudine, 

Quia  mandata  tua  exquisivi. 
Et  loquebar  in  tesliinoniis  tuis  iu  couspectu  regum 
Et  non  confuudebar." 

Psalm  cxvii.  44,  46  (Vulgate). 


CHAPTER  I 

WHAT  MANNER  OF  MAN  HE  WAS 

"•  I>ibcra  me  de  sanguinibus,  Deiis,  Deus  salutis  meae, 
Et  cxultabit  lingua  mea  justitiam  tuam." 

Psalm  1.  (Vulgate). 

This  book  does  not  profess  to  be  a  Life  of  David  Urquhart. 

It  is  merely  a  story  of  his  two  greatest  attempts  to  avert 
the  ruin  which  was  already  hanging  over  Europe,  though 
only  seers  like  himself,  or  Cobbett,  or  William  Morris  could 
discern  its  dark  and  sinister  signs. 

Urquhart  saw  them  more  clearly  than  the  others  of  the 
Brotherhood,  because  he  had  an  opportunity,  which  they 
had  not,  of  comparing  things  as  they  were  with  things  as 
they  had  been  in  a  more  healthful  state  of  society 

Many  attempts  have  been  made  to  write  his  Life,  but 
they  have  all  failed  because  his  biographers  were  so  bUnded 
with  admiration  for  their  hero  that  they  could  not  see  his 

defects. 

Let  us  begin,  therefore,  by  pointing  out  what  Urquhart 

was  not. 

He  was  not  a  statesman,  in  spite  of  his  great  knowledge 

of  statecraft. 

He  was  not  a  historian,  in  spite  of  his  wide  knowledge  of 
history;  for  he  was  neither  logical  nor  accurate,  nor  had 
he  any  idea  of  the  value  of  evidence. 

He  was  not  a  psychologist,  in  spite  of  his  interest  in 
and  love  for  human  nature;  his  mind  was  always  at  work 
comparing  men  with  what  they  ought  to  be  rather  than 
realising  them  as  they  were. 

But  he  was  a  prophet.  His  historical  next  of  kin  are 
Cassandra  and  Jeremiah.  For  it  is  only  after  the  catas- 
trophe has  come  that  his  countrymen  can  see  how  true 
were  the  words  he  spoke.     Indeed,  we  hear  them  now  on 

19 


20  DAVID  URQUHART 

all  sides,  though  most  of  those  who  utter  them  do  not 
know  their  origin.  Labour  leaders,  religious  teachers, 
Mediaevalists,  Guild  Socialists,  promoters  of  Leagues  of 
Nations,  those  who  hate  the  Peace  terms,  all  speak  his 
language  now. 

Born  ten  years  before  the  battle  of  Waterloo  on  his 
family  estate  in  the  Scottish  Highlands,  Urquhart  started 
life  with  that  fiercest  form  of  aristocracy,  Scottish  pride 
of  race;  and  an  aristocrat  he  remained  to  the  day  of  his 
death.  But,  thanks  to  his  cosmopolitan  education,^  his 
interest  in  commerce  and  his  close  and  intimate  friendship 
with  men  of  the  working  classes  on  his  Foreign  Affairs 
Committees,  the  aristocratic  spirit  he  had  inherited  was 
counterbalanced  by  a  democratic  conscience,  which  he 
acquired  and  which  was  none  the  less  true  and  sincere 
because  he  Avas,  and  always  remained,  a  monarchist.  His 
knowledge  of  the  East  taught  him  the  respect  and  courtesy 
due  from  one  man  to  another,  irrespective  of  class  distinc- 
tions, and  a  dramatic  incident  of  his  early  manhood,  which 

1  Uiquliart's  education  was  conducted  by  his  motlier  in  an 
altogether  original  manner.  He  was  delicate  as  a  child,  and  at  ten 
years  old  she  took  him  abroad  with  a  tutor.  They  lived  in  France, 
Switzerland,  and  Italy,  and  Urquhart's  studies  were  superintended 
by  first  one  tutor,  then  another,  more  or  less  unsatisfactorily. 

His  flr.st  real  settled  education  took  place  at  the  College  of  Soreze, 
famous  later  as  the  scene  of  Lacordaire's  labours  amongst  his  beloved 
"  jeunesse." 

Soreze  was  interesting  enough  in  its  history  to  fire  the  imagination 
of  such  a  boy  as  David  Urquhart. 

Founded  in  757,  under  Pepin  le  Bref,  as  an  abbey,  it  became  a 
military  school  about  1,000  years  later,  under  the  Benedictines. 
Secularised  at  the  Revolution,  it  still  retained  its  original  character 
because  it  remained  in  the  hands  of  its  old  superiors,  who  became 
laymen  for  the  time  being.  It  was  still  under  this  regime  when 
Urquhart  was  sent  there  in  1817.  In  1854  it  became  a  Dominican 
school  under  Lacordaire. 

At  Soreze  Urquhart's  education  began  in  earnest.  He  was  at 
school  as  an  extern  from  5.30  a.m.  until  7  at  night,  and  often  sat 
up  till  midnight  preparing  his  lessons  for  the  next  day. 

He  had  a  tutor  to  help  him  with  Latin  and  Greek,  but  Mrs.  Urqu- 
hart describes  him  as  a  "  heavy  burden."  "  His  master,"  she  says 
in  a  letter  to  David's  half-sister,  Henrietta,  "  does  not  even  raise 
him.  I  have  had  him  so  often  vexed  that  I  have  a  woman  to  come 
on  purpose  to  wake  liiin.  \V"e  keep  the  fire  in,  and  sometimes  his 
anxiety  is  such  that  he  gets  up  at  3  o'clock  and  studies." 

No  wonder  an  old  friend  writes  to  Mrs.  Urquhart:  "  I  cannot  think 
that  it  is  good  lor  our  darling  David  to  study  such  long  hours." 


Q 


C     u 
•J     u 


WHAT  IMANNER  OF  MAN  HE  WAS  21 

took  place  there,  aroused  into  vigorous  life  a  passion  for 
justice,  which  upheld  him  through  years  of  almost  hopeless 
struggle  against  national  and  social  injustice  and  im- 
morality. 

For  David  Urquhart  was  a  crusader  first  and  foremost. 
It  is  true  that  he  was  many  other  things  as  weU:  a  diplo- 
matist too  honest  for  the  diplomatic  world  of  his  day;  a 
politician  with  aims  too  lofty  to  succeed  in  politics;  a 
philosopher,  who  rose  above  the  barren  intellectuality  and 
utilitarianism  of  the  utilitarian  school  of  his  day,  though 
Jeremy  Bentham  was  a  friend  of  his  impressionable  youth ; 
a  writer,  whose  writings,  in  spite  of  the  careless  diction 
which  too  often  mars  them,  rose  sometimes  to  heights  of 
poetic  beauty;  a  prophet,  who  fifty  years  ago  foretold  the 
woes  which  have  fallen  on  this  generation.  But  all  these 
noble  qualities  were  burnt  to  a  white  heat  in  the  furnace 
of  his  passion  for  the  re-establishment  of  justice  in  the 
world.  That  is  the  key  which  unlocks  all  the  chambers  of 
a  mind  full  of  interests  and  gifts.  That  is  the  torch  which 
lights  all  the  secret  recesses  of  a  personality  at  once  complex 
and  contradictory.  That  was  the  one  dream,  the  one  hope 
of  his  life.  For  that  he  spent  money  recklessly,  lavishly, 
heedless  not  only  of  his  own  future,  but,  later  on,  of  that 
of  his  children.  For  that  he  laboured  night  and  day  in 
spite  of  sufferings,  which  were  a  "  baptism  of  pain."  For 
that,  with  a  nature  affectionate  and  sensitive  to  an  almost 
inconceivable  degree,  he  put  aside  the  natural  desire  of  a 
man  for  a  home  and  human  love  till  his  fiftieth  year,  and 
offered  after  his  marriage,  not  himself  alone,  but  the  wife 
to  whom  he  was  devoted,  a  willing  sacrifice  to  the  cause. 

Few  people  have  been  so  misjudged.  David  Urquhart 
was  a  "  megalo -maniac."  His  unceasing  hostility  and 
opposition  to  Lord  Palmerston  was  the  result  of  "  dis- 
appointed ambition."  The  political  aim  of  a  man  who 
loathed  parties  was  "  to  form  a  party,  that  should  be 
called  after  his  own  name."  He,  the  bitterest  foe  of  Russia, 
was  in  her  pay,  or  if  he  was  not,  his  friends  were.  All  his 
convictions  were  the  result  of  "  insensate  vanity,"  of 
"  wounded  pride,"  of  "  mad  extravagance." 


22  DAVID  URQUHART 

On  the  other  hand,  men  of  all  classes,  of  all  shades  of 
religious  and  political  opinion,  of  all  nations  and  of  all 
grades  of  intellect  were  attracted  to  him.  But  in  all  these 
there  was  a  certain  nobility  and  simplicity,  which  enabled 
them  to  recognise  the  same  nobility  in  his  freedom  from 
self-seeking,  his  absolute  justice,  and  the  sincerity  and 
purity  of  his  character,  through  all  the  many  and  con- 
spicuous faults  that  marred  it,  his  extravagance,  his  some- 
times apparent  and  sometimes  real  egoism,  and  his  over- 
bearing manner,  which  alienated  many  who  would  have 
been  his  friends  and  gave  to  his  enemies  many  very  welcome 
occasions  of  scandal. 

His  influence  was  by  no  means  confined  to  men  of  his 
own  country. 

Alone  almost  of  Englishmen,  he  was  admitted  to  intimacy 
with  the  Turks.  He  might  live  in  a  Mohammedan  house, 
eat  at  a  Mohammedan  table,  receive  the  "  Temena  "  or 
Mohammedan  greeting. 

It  was  no  secret  that  he  might,  while  still  a  young  man, 
had  he  chosen,  have  remained  in  Turkey  as  confidential 
adviser  to  the  Sultan.  The  Circassians,  seeing  in  him  at 
first  sight  a  simplicity  and  nobility  akin  to  their  own, 
wished  to  make  him  their  Chief,  and,  because  of  him,  placed 
in  English  honour  and  in  English  arms  a  confidence  which 
tended  to  their  undoing. 

"  Daoud  Bey  "  they  called  him,  and  in  the  East  "  Daoud 
Bey  "  was  a  name  to  conjure  with  to  the  last  j^ear  of  his  life, 
when,  sick  almost  to  death,  he  travelled  through  Egypt, 
"en  prince,"  receiving  the  homage  of  Pashas  and  peasants, 
to  some  of  whom  that  name  had  been  from  their  youth  a 
household  word. 

A  Protestant  to  the  last,  in  spite  of  his  conviction  that 
the  Papacy  was  "  the  only  moral  force  in  Europe,"  he 
won  and  kept  the  whole-hearted  respect  of  prominent 
Catholic  ecclesiastics,  German,  Italian  and  French,  as  well 
as  English.  So  great  an  impression  did  he  make  on  the 
Papal  Legate  Cappaccini  in  1844  that  Pope  Gregory  XVI. 
summoned  him  to  the  Vatican  to  confer  with  him  about  the 
foundation  of  a  diplomatic  College  in  Rome.     Pero  Gratry, 


WHAT  MANNER  OF  MAN  HE  WAS  23 

M.  le  Play,  the  General  of  the  Jesuits,  Monsignor,  after- 
wards Cardinal,  Franchi,  the  Bishop  of  Geneva,  the  famous 
Dupanloup,  Bishop  of  Orleans,  were  on  terms  of  friendship, 
in  some  cases  of  intimacy,  with  him.  "  God  has  inspired 
you  with  very  great  ideas  on  the  greatest  of  subjects,"  said 
Pius  IX.  to  him  at  a  private  audience. 

And  yet  the  majority  of  EngUsh  statesmen  were  either 
entirely  indifferent  or  actively  hostile  to  him.     There  were 
notable  exceptions.     As  quite  a  young  man  on  his  return 
from  Constantinople  he  was  high  in  the  favour  and  con- 
fidence of  William  IV.     Disraeli  recognised  his  greatness  as 
he  recognised  DisraeH's  possibilities,  and  there  was  a  great 
and  striking  unanimity  between  his  point  of  view  and  that 
of  Disraeli  at  his  loftiest  and  best.     Lord  Ponsonby,  who 
was  at  least  partly  responsible  for  the  wreck  of  his  diplot 
matic  career  in  1837,  became  reconciled  to  him  after  years 
of  estrangement,  and  admitted  that  he  had  been  right  from 
the  beginning,  and  that  he  alone  could  save  England. 

The  barrier  between  Urquhart  and  the  statesmen  of  his  time 
is  due  very  largely  to  his  unremitting  and  intense  hostiUty 
to  Russia.     By  his  enemies  this  hostility  was  sneered  at 
as  a  form  of  mono-mania;  even  by  many  disposed  to  sympa- 
thise with  him  his  poHtics  were  deemed  unsound  because 
he  proposed  to  humble  Russia  by  the  exaltation  of  Turkey. 
In  1834  Urquhart  pubhshed  his  pamphlet  Turkey  and 
Her  Resources,  showing  the  military  and  commercial  strength 
of  that  country,  with  its  rich  lands  and  free  trade;  where 
the  hearth  was  the  factory;  where  every  citizen  had  the 
right  to  wear  the  sword,  which  he  might  only  wield,  how- 
ever, in  the  cause  of  right  and  justice.     The  knowledge  he 
had  gained  of  her  people  and  her  commerce  enabled  him 
to  draw  up  his  Commercial  Treaty,  whose  object  was  to 
encourage  trade  between  Great  Britain  and  Turkey.     Tha- 
this  Commercial  Treaty  was  so  altered  as  to  defeat  the  end 
he  had  in  view,  he  was  doubtless  right  in  putting  down 
to  Russian  intrigue,  and  he  pointed  out  with  great  clearness 
to  the  working  classes  of  England  that  the  dearness  of  their 
food  was  due  to  Russian  astuteness  and  EngUsh— particu- 
larly Palmerstonian — complacency. 


24  DAVID  URQUHART 

This  is  no  place  to  inquire  how  far  he  was  right  in  regard- 
ing every  political  move  in  Europe  as  due  to  the  machina- 
tions of  the  Russian  Cabinet.  We  must  remember,  how- 
ever, that  not  only  was  the  Russian  foreign  policy  of  an 
entirely  unbroken  uniformity,  and  her  Foreign  Ministers, 
unlike  those  of  the  rest  of  Europe,  quite  independent  of 
political  parties,  but  that,  however  we  may  account  for  it, 
within  one  hundred  and  fifty  years  the  Russian  power  had 
advanced  with  frightening  rapidity.  At  the  time  of  the 
Crimean  War  she  was  one  thousand  miles  nearer  Teheran, 
seven  hundred  miles  nearer  Vienna  and  Berlin,  and  five 
hundred  miles  nearer  Constantinople  than  she  had  been 
at  the  death  of  Tsar  Peter. ^  Urquhart  was  not  alone  in 
his  bitter  mistrust  of  Russia.  The  Poles  looked  upon  her 
as  their  undoing,  Turkey  was  like  a  fly  helpless  in  her  web, 
and  M.  Thiers  looked  forward  with  dismal  prognostications 
to  the  time  "  when  the  Russian  Colossus,  with  one  foot  in 
the  Dardanelles  and  the  other  in  the  Sound,  will  make  the 
whole  world  his  slave  and  liberty  will  have  fled  to  America." 
Urquhart,  in  the  concentration  of  his  mind  on  Russia,  did 
not,  perhaps,  lay  enough  stress  on  the  growing  power  of 
Prussia  .2  The  separation  of  the  Duchies  he  regarded  not 
so  much  as  a  rung,  set  by  Bismarck,  in  the  ladder  of  Prussia's 
rise  to  power,  but  as  the  result  of  Russian  machination. 

Mr.  Behrens,  who  helped  him  in  his  commercial  investi- 
gations, gives  a  remarkable  instance  of  Urquhart 's  almost 
supernatural  prevision. 

"  We  wore  walking  along  the  Elbe  conversing  upon  the 
state  of  England  and  ]Mr.  Urquhart 's  then  accomplished 
career  in  the  East.  We  sat  down  on  an  eminence  to  enjoy 
the  view,  and  Mr.  Urquhart  asked  me  the  name  of  the 
country  spread  out  before  us.  I  said,  '  Holstein.'  He 
exclaimed,  with  great  excitement,  'Is  that  Holstein?'  and 
interrupting  our  conversation  he  remained  with  his  gaze 

^  Vro(jreHSi  of  Iluf^sia,  West,  South,  and  Eaxi,  D.  Urqnharf,  second 
Kditioii  1803.  It  readied  live  editions.  ISir  Joim  McXeil,  wiio  knew 
the  East  ahnost  as  well  as  Urquliart,  is  even  luoie  einplifitic  about 
the  Riissiiiii  menace  in  his  Progress  of  Russia  in  the  East. 

'  Sec,  however,  Pi'T/ifoUo,  Old  Scries,  vols.  i.  and  iii.,  on  Prusria's 
Policy. 


WHAT  MANNER  OF  MAN  HE  WAS  25 

intently  fixed  upon  it.  I  was  surprised,  and  at  last  answered, 
and  said  to  him :  '  That  is  Holstein  you  see,  not  Timbuctoo.' 
He  turned  upon  me  and  said,  '  Yes,  Holstein !  and  1  was 
thinking  of  the  day  when  that  name  would  ring  through 
Europe  !'  I  was  desirous  to  know  what  all  this  meant, 
and  he  then  told  me  a  great  deal  about  the  Oldenburgh 
Line,  the  renunciations  of  Peter,  and  a  number  of  other 
antiquated  matters,  which  really  did  not  appear  to  me  as 
much  connected  with  the  nineteenth  century  as  the  stories 
of  Charlemagne  and  Barbarossa.  I  had  for  a  moment 
misgivings  as  to  whether  or  not  his  head  had  been  turned, 
and  I  said  to  myself :  '  How  extraordinary  that  a  man  should 
understand  as  he  does  commercial  matters  and  the  East 
and  England,  and  yet  become  wild  whenever  he  can  bring 
in  Russia  !'  But  when  the  insurrection  came  in  the  Duchies 
and  then  the  Mediations,  and  then  the  interminable  fight- 
ings about  no  one  knew  what,  until  it  came  to  the  Russian 
Protocols  and  Reservations,  I  remembered  those  words, 
and  often  mentioned  them;  I  found  it  was  I,  not  he,  that 
had  been  mad.  And  I  came  to  be  considered  a  prophet  at 
Hamburg  by  recollecting  what  he  had  told  me  a  dozen 
years  before."^ 

His  prophecy  of  the  results  of  the  German  Zollverein  we 
have  seen  fulfilled  in  our  day.- 

"  At  midnight  on  January  1,  1834,"  he  says,  "  the  barriers 
between  sixteen  States  were  knocked  down.  .  .  .  Sixteen 
States  are  added  to  the  Prussian  system  and  agglomerated 
around  her  disjointed  and  unconnected  territory.  ...  It 
will  make  Germany  indeed  one,  but  that  unity  will,  Ave 
fear,  be  no  less  disastrous  to  the  j)arts  of  which  it  is  com- 
posed than  to  the  general  interests  of  the  European  com- 
munity of  which  it  is  a  member.  .  .  .  From  the  moment 
that  Prussia  collects  and  distributes  the  revenues  she  places 
herself,  not  in  the  position  of  a  feudal  lord,  whose  revenue 
was  received  from  his  vassals,  but  in  the  position  of  a 
proprietor,  who  distributes  the  means  of  subsistence  to 
his  agents  and  dependents.  .  .  .  Prussian  custom-house 
collectors,  her  roads,  weights,  measures,  coins,  extended 
throughout  the  twenty-five  millions,  now  composing  the 
union,  will  soon  be  followed  by  her  laws,  by  State  papers, 

1  Private  Letter. 

2  See  Article  by  D.  U.  in  the  Briiish  and  Foreign  Review  on  "  Tlie 
rrustiiii.n  Comniorcia,!  Loiigue." 


26  DAVID  URQUHART 

State  loans,  and  finally  by  conscription,  and  even  at  this 
moment,  were  the  peace  of  Europe  to  be  disturbed,  the 
Federation  would  fly  to  arms  at  the  bidding  of  Prussia, 
assemble  under  her  banners,  be  paid  by  her  from  the 
common  treasury,  and  obey  her  generals." 

In  denouncing  the  folly  of  the  Crimean  War  Urquhart 
foretold  that  Russia  would  not  suffer  from  it,  but  that, 
whether  she  lost  or  won,  it  would  be  a  step  on  the  down- 
ward path  for  Turkey.  The  Declaration  of  Paris  proved 
to  France  in  the  war  of  1870-71  what  in  1860  he  had  said 
it  would  prove  in  the  event  of  a  war  with  Prussia — dire 
disaster. 

This  prophetic  power  of  his  Urquhart  himself  called  "the 
power  of  being  right."  There  was  nothing  supernatural  or 
extraordinary  about  it.  It  was  simply  the  result  of  a 
system. 

"  Look  at  me,"  he  said  to  his  old  friend,  the  Prince  of 
Samos  in  1862,  "a  man  without  position,  with  only 
mediocre  talents,  beginning  with  nothing,  and  yet  I  am 
always  right.  I  cannot  conceive  the  circumstances  under 
which  I  should  be  wrong.  For  if  an  insoluble  position 
arose  I  should  stop.  I  should  do  nothing.  Yet  I  tell  you 
there  is  nothing  in  all  that  I  have  done  that  any  other 
man  might  not  have  done,  might  not  do.  I  have  only 
hit  upon  a  method — a  method  of  procedure." 

He  differed  from  other  men,  he  would  have  said,  simply  in 
this,  his  determination  to  be  always  right.  It  was  within 
the  power  of  every  man  to  be  right,  and  therefore  his  duty. 

He  could  not,  he  said,  believe  in  a  God  unless  he  could 
believe  that  a  man  had  in  himself  this  power  of  being 
right. 

A  man  can  be  right,  therefore  he  must  be  right,  or  he  is 

not  a  man. 

No  allowance  is  made  in  the  Urquhart  philosophy  for 
human  weakness.  The  standard  he  set  for  himself  he  set 
for  others  also,  without  distinction  of  persons,  class  or 
sex.  Such  an  evidence  of  trust  and  respect  accounts  in 
part  for  the  honour  and  devotion  he  met  with  from  his 
friends  of  every  class,  princes  and  worldng  men  alike,  in 


WHAT  MANNER  OF  MAN  HE  WAS  27 

spite  of  the  harshness,  even  violence,  with  which  he  often 
treated  them.^  His  treatment  of  them  was  often  as  in- 
comprehensible to  those  who  suffered  under  it  as  it  was 
to  the  onlookers.  He  explained  it  himself  as  "  the  result 
of  his  working  on  men." 

Starting  from  the  axiom  that  it  is  within  the  power,  and 
therefore  the  duty, of  every  man  to  be  right,  he  asks,  "Why, 
then,  are  they  not  right  ?"  "  Because,"  he  answers,  "  their 
eyes  are  bhnded  by  self-love.  Men  of  this  corrupt  age 
prefer  seeming  right  to  being  right.  They  are  furious  when 
they  are  shown  to  be  wrong;  their  self-love  is  hurt." 

Therefore  Urquhart's  first  object  was  to  kill  the  self-love 
in  those  who  were  possible  disciples,  and  so  enable  them 
to  see  themselves  as  he  had  once  seen  himself.  In  other 
words  he  believed  he  could  effect  nothing  without  a  real 
conversion  or  new  birth.  To  this  end  he  often,  at  first, 
so  infuriated  men  by  his  scathing  and  contemptuous  lan- 
guage that  they  left  him,  determined  to  have  no  more  to 
do  with  him.  But  he  says  that,  thinking  over  his  words 
calmly,  they  invariably  found  out  that  he  was  right,  and 
if  they  had  sufficient  courage  and  truth  in  them  they  re- 
turned to  him  and  were  won.  This  was  the  way  he  won 
the  Chartists;  and  later  on  Socialists  and  Atheists,  who 
came  to  scoff,  were  drawn  into  his  net  by  being  shown,  as 
one  of  them  afterwards  said,  "  that  they  had  never  been 
right  in  their  lives." 

This  was  the  first  step ;  the  second  was  the  development 
of  a  conscience  in  public  affairs.  Man  was  born  part  of  a 
community.  He  could  not  live  to  himself.  If  wrong  were 
done  by  the  State  to  which  he  belonged  he  could  not  say, 
"  The  Government  has  done  this,"  and  think  no  more 
about  it. 

"  You  have  done  it,"  said  Urquhart,  "  and  you  will  be 
punished  in  this  world  and  the  next.  When  national  in- 
justice is  done,  who  suffers  ?     Each  individual  in  the  State 

1  His  letters  show  that  he  reproved  as  whole-heartedly  and 
severely  his  friends,  Prince  Czartoryski  and  Prince  Frederick  of 
Augustenberg,  as  he  did  his  working-men  disciples ;  they  show  also 
that  he  was  just  as  respectful  to  a  working-man  as  to  any  Crowned 
Head  of  Europe  with  whom  he  came  in  contact. 


28  DAVID  URQUHART 

sooner  or  later,  and  the  working-man  first  of  all,  for  he  is 
bound  to  his  country  and  cannot  get  away  from  it.  And 
yet  people  go  on  thinking  that  they  can  be  right  while  the 
nation  of  which  they  are  a  part  is  wrong.  They  do  this 
because  they  hide  their  responsibility  under  an  abstraction 
and  say,  '  The  State  does  this  or  that,'  not  '  I  and  my 
fellow-countrymen  do  this  or  that.'  " 

So  we  come  to  the  third  part  of  Urquhart's  system,  the 
cultivation  of  a  right  judgment,  the  first  and  most  important 
part  of  which  was  the  right  use  of  words.  "  Men  suppose 
that  their  reason  has  authority  over  words ;  but  it  happens 
that  words  in  return  exercise  power  over  reason,"  says 
Francis  Bacon.  The  way  to  prevent  a  fact  being  under- 
stood and  realised  is  to  clothe  it  in  abstract  terms,  to 
enunciate  it  under  a  general  proposition,  to  use  some  term 
that  is  so  common  and  yet  so  loose  that  it  really  conveys 
a  false  meaning  to  the  minds  of  people,  who  think  they 
understand  it.  Political  and  philosophical  language  is  full 
of  such  terms.  Urquhart  applied  the  Socratic  method^  to 
show  their  emptiness  to  all  who  glibly  used  them,  without 
regard  to  their  meaning  or  no -meaning. 

The  last  and  most  important  of  all  the  means  of  being 
right  was  the  acquisition  of  real  first-hand  knowledge,  not 
someone's  opinions,  not  loose  and  inaccurate  information, 
but  real  knowledge.  This  means  hard  and  self-denying 
labour.  Such  labour  is  everyone's  duty,  especially  in  the 
things  that  concern  the  government  of  his  country,  which 
it  is  the  constant  concern  of  all  politicians  to  keep  from 
him,  particularly  in  relation  to  foreign  affairs. 

Such  was  Urquhart's  system.  In  brief,  it  amounted  to 
this:  a  man  to  be  right  must  first  cast  aside  the  self  he 
received  from  his  age,  and  must  set  his  true  self  to  work 
at  the  acquisition  of  knowledge  and  self -discipline,  striving 
all  the  time  against  allowing  himself  to  be  infected  by  the 
modern  spirit  and  public  opinion;  when  he  was  himself 
instructed  he  must  teach  others. 

The  pursuance  of  this  method  was  as  painful  and  uphill 
for  the  master  as  for  the  disciples.     If  the  treatment  meted 

1  For  Urquhart's  method  ol  teaching  dialectic,  see  Appendix  II. 


WHAT  MANNER  OF  MAN  HE  WAS  29 

out,  in  their  training,  to  men  who  were  devoting  hfe  and 
substance  to  the  great  cause  seems  almost  like  cruelty, 
David  Urquhart  himself  spent  sleepless  nights  over  their 
education.  But  he  never  flinched  in  what  he  conceived 
to  be  his  duty.  "  One  living  soul,"  he  says,  "  is  to  me  the 
universe." 

"  My  striving  for  your  soul,"  he  writes  to  a  lady,  whom 
he  had  convicted  of  want  of  intellectual  sincerity,  "is  to 
get  it  clear-sighted  and  upright.  It  cannot  be  the  last 
unless  it  is  the  first,  for  at  every  second  of  time,  with  an 
active  mind  such  as  yours,  the  slightest  flaw  in  an  intel- 
lectual operation  gives  a  foothold  for  self-love.  My  life, 
alas  !  is  spent  in  watching  these  operations.  There  is 
scarcely  a  friend  I  have  from  whom  the  letter  I  receive 
may  not  be  the  last.  I  can  retain  them  only  by  putting 
them  beyond  the  reach  of  error  and  failure,  for  in  that 
their  selif-love  is  offended  by  being  told  that  they  may 
have  been  wrong.  And  yet  this  alone  is  the  condition  on 
which  I  can  hold  intercourse  with  my  fellow-creatures." 

This  crushing  of  self-love,  "  the  entire  abnegation  of 
self,"  as  he  expresses  it,  was  essential  for  every  man  among 
his  followers.  The  little  band  was  leading  a  forlorn  hope. 
Hitherto  their  acquaintance  with  public  questions  had  con- 
sisted "  in  floating  on  the  top  of  a  public  frenzy  aided  by 
an  assenting  Government."  Joined  to  his  company,  how- 
ever, they  were  "  struggling  against  the  stream."  "  There 
were  no  passions  to  be  worked  on,  only  right  to  be  main- 
tained." No  man  could  put  his  hand  to  the  plough,  not 
only  without  a  perfect  abnegation  of  every  selfish  end,  but 
also  without  entire  knowledge  of  the  matter  in  hand.  The 
aim  of  the  ploughing  was  nothing  less  than  the  casting 
down  of  the  evil  of  injustice  and  pubHc  immorality 
which  was  enthroned  in  the  world,  which  found  its  complete 
expression  in  unjust  war,  and  whose  most  perfect  incarna- 
tion was  Russia. 

His  followers  must  not  only  be,  they  must  know.  To  that 
end  they  must  labour,  to  that  end  they  must  study.  They 
must  spare  themselves  no  toil  or  trouble.  He  who  said 
this  practised  what  he  preached.     His  labour  was  incessant. 


30  DAVID  URQUHART 

"  There  is  nothing  in  the  whole  world,"  he  says,  "  equal 
in  my  eyes  to  one  man  being  always  perfect,  always  able  to 
convict,  always  indignant  against  wrong,  whose  mind  ever 
occupies  the  judgment  seat,  who,  in  a  word,  is — judgment. 
That  God  created  us  for  this  is  evident  in  our  being  the 
reverse;  for  what  pushes  each  into  the  mire  is  the  desire  to 
appear  to  be  right,  that  disposition  which  we  familiarly 
designate  among  ourselves  as  self-love.  Now  this  is  the 
sure  effect  of  faihng  to  be  right.  Such  an  aspiration  planted 
in  the  breast  of  all  (as  well  as  the  necessary  faculties  them- 
selves) shows  that  being  right  is  the  end  for  which  we  were 
created.  Here  too  lies  the  evidence  of  immortality  revealed 
in  man  himself,  the  greatest  of  all  revelations." 

"  Those  only  who  see  are  honest.  Those  only  can  hope 
who  work.  Forget  j^ourself.  That  is  the  first  condition  of 
good  greatness  and  of  real  enjoyment." 

If  Urquhart  had  been  asked  to  explain  his  moral  point 
of  departure  he  would  doubtless  have  cited  his  extensive 
and  sympathetic  knowledge  of  the  East.  He  went  to 
Turkey  from  Greece,  and  was  at  first  most  unfavourably 
impressed  respecting  the  character  of  Eastern  countries  by 
the  Turkish  Government  and  people. 

It  was  after  six  years'  work  and  experience  that  he  felt 
forced  to  change  his  oi)inions.  Obviously,  though  we  may 
pass  by  for  the  moment  the  question  of  Turkish  adminis- 
tration, he  was  qualified  to  form  a  judgment  about  Eastern 
life.  It  is  the  moral  aspect  of  that  judgment  which  affects 
us  here.  David  Urquhart  considered  he  had  been  convicted 
by  a  Mussulman  of  the  crime  of  murder  in  unjust  war, 
and  that  he  had  learnt  from  the  Mussulmans  the  first 
principles,  unknown  in  Europe,  of  cleanliness,  courtesy, 
self-denial  and  sincere  speech. 

"  If  I  take  this  musket  unblessed  by  God,  then  I  take 
it  of  the  devil,"  said  a  simple  Mussulman  soldier,  explaining 
why  he  and  his  companions  had  allowed  themselves  to  be 
driven  out  of  a  redoubt,  without  firing  a  shot,  by  Russian 
soldiers.  War  had  not  been  declared  by  the  Fetva,  there- 
fore to  fight  would  have  been  murder.  A  Christian  might 
do  such  a  thing,  a  Mussulman  never.  Urquhart,  whose 
own  hands  wore  reddened  with  the  blood  of  men  with 


WHAT  MANNER  OF  MAN  HE  WAS  31 

whom  his  country  was  not  at  war  (he  had  fought  against 
the  Turks  in  the  Greek  War  of  Independence),  was  brought 
up  short  against  an  overwhelming  sense  of  guilt.  "  I 
would  gladly  have  given  myself  up  to  justice,"  he  says, 
"  had  there  been  a  tribunal  to  deal  with  such  cases." 
Instead  thereof,  he  gave  himself  up  to  a  lifelong  struggle 
to  re-establish  the  cause  of  law  and  justice  between  nation 
and  nation. 

This  first  lesson  was  followed  by  others,  for  it  must  be 
remembered  that  the  Turkey  he  studied  was  not  the  Turkey 
of  Constantinople,  but  the  Turkey  of  the  country  villages 
unspoiled  by  European  civilisation.  The  veil  of  European 
convention  fell  from  his  eyes.  The  mist  of  European 
language  and  ideas  feU  from  his  mind.  He  saw  that  there 
is  something  better  than  so-called  progress,  and  that  is 
"  stationariness,"  when  the  latter  means  "  the  free  right 
to  property  of  every  man,  and  the  equaUty  of  all  men 
before  the  law."  When  the  status  quo  is  good,  man,  especi- 
ally the  Eastern,  mistrusts  all  departure  from  it.  Again, 
if  government  in  the  East  is  despotism,  it  is  frank  despotism, 
not  legal  tyranny;  "  men  are  not  exasperated  by  the  con- 
version into  law,  through  the  decisions  of  an  accidental  and 
numerical  majority,  of  opinions  they  repudiate."  It  was 
in  the  East  that  Urquhart  learnt  the  effect  of  manner  and 
words  on  character.  He  saw  a  country  where  all  classes 
mixed  together  in  closest  relationship,  without  familiarity 
on  the  one  side,  without  haughtiness  on  the  other;  where 
the  master  addressed  his  servant  in  terms  of  respect  and 
affection  without  fear  of  loss  of  dignity,  because  a  common 
rule  of  respect  and  courtesy,  unquestioned  and  irrefragible, 
governed  aU  intercourse.  Children  brought  up  under  that 
regime  were  neither  cowed  nor  unruly.  They  were  treated 
with  respect  and  yielded  obedience.  He  saw  social  inter- 
course free  from  the  idle  chatter  and  flippancy  of  European 
society,  because  politeness  forbade  anyone  to  speak  unless 
he  had  something  to  say,  and  because  it  was  the  height 
of  bad  manners  to  tell  anyone  what  he  already  knew.  He 
found  cleanliness  carried  to  a  pitch  unknown  in  Europe, 
for  the  bath,  as  among  the  Romans,  really  carried  away 


32  DAVID  URQUHART 

the  impurities  of  the  skin,  and  even  the  hands  must  be 
washed  by  clean  water  being  poured  over  them.  And, 
lastly,  he  saw  a  state  of  society  where  an  excuse  was  the 
worst  of  bad  form,  where  a  man  must  either  prove  himself 
right  or  admit  himself  wrong.  In  short,  as  he  said  towards 
the  end  of  his  life,  he  found  a  state  of  society  in  which  all 
the  ceremonies  of  the  Catholic  Church  in  her  most  solemn 
act  of  worship  are  part  of  the  daily  life  of  the  people: 
the  ablutions,  the  prayer  of  the  priest^  when  censing  the 
Altar,  the  reverential  posture  of  the  ministers,  not  only 
towards  God,  but  towards  each  other,  and  finally  the 
ceremonial  and  ancient  form  of  salutation  given  under  the 
very  eye  of  God  made  Man. 

David  Urquhart's  contemporaries  found  his  religious 
position  very  difficult  to  define.  Like  most  other  things 
about  him,  it  seemed  to  most  men  a  paradox.  On  the  one 
hand,  his  code  of  ethics,  at  first  sight,  seems  diametrically 
opposed  to  that  which  we  are  inclined  to  consider  as  dis- 
tinctively Christian.  There  is  hardly  anything  in  it  which 
we  can  recognise  as  humility,  or  dependence  on  God.  The 
fate  of  nations,  according  to  it,  depends  entirely  on  the 
conduct  of  those  who  compose  them.  National  catastrophes 
are  always  the  direct  result  of  stupidity  or  wrong-doing — 
the  wrong-doing  of  every  individual  in  the  nation.  Man 
will  profit  if  he  does  his  task  with  wisdom,  knowledge  and 
diligence.  Man  will  suffer  for  carelessness,  ignorance  and 
folly.     Man's  first  duty  is  to  be  right. 

On  the  other  hand,  Urquhart  says  that  the  only  end  of 
his  existence  is  to  serve  God,  which  service  consists  in 
being  just — that  is,  in  having  a  right  judgment  in  all  things. 
In  a  letter  to  an  unbeliever  he  declares : 

"  I  am  daily  and  hourly  engaged  in  the  endeavour  to 
lead  the  life  of  a  Christian — that  is,  to  be  right  in  all  things. 
That  '  all  things  '  includes  the  minutest  operation  of  the 
mind  and  perception  of  the  senses." 

He  maintained  that  most  so-called  Christians  were  not 

Christians. 

^  Pone  Domine  custodiam  ori  meo  .  .  .  xit  uon  declinet  cor  meum 
in  verba  malitise  ad  excusandas  excusationes  in  peccatis. 


WHAT  lilANNER  OF  ]\IAN  HE  WAS  33 

"  To  know  a  Christian,"  he  says,  "  there  is  the  simplest 
of  rules,  which  is  also  a  Divine  Commandment;  it  is  '  By 
their  fruits  ye  shall  know  them.'  You  must  surely  know 
that  in  this  land  there  are  no  longer  Christians,  and  with- 
out Christians  how  can  there  be  Christianity  ?  .  .  .  If 
there  were  amongst  the  missionaries  a  single  Christian,  he 
would  not  be  found  in  China  or  Hindoostan,  but  in  England, 
denouncing  a  race  of  malefactors  and  calling  them  to 
repentance." 

There  can  indeed  be  no  doubt  of  the  depth  and  absolute 
sincerity  of  his  religious  convictions.  They  are  manifest 
in  every  action  of  his  life.  His  religious  history  is  a  singular 
one.  Brought  up  by  a  clever  and  original  mother,^  whose 
piety  took  the  form  of  extreme  Evangelicalism,  his  educa- 
tion threw  him  during  the  most  impressionable  time  of 
his  young  life  into  contact  with  Catholics  in  foreign  schools. 

No  strong  impression  seems,  however,  to  have  been  made 
on  him  till  he  came  under  the  influence  of  Csesar  ]\Ialan  of 
Geneva.  Under  the  spell  of  this  famous  Calvinistic  teacher 
and  his  friends,  the  latent  Calvinism  Urquhart  had  inherited 
from  his  forbears  burst  forth  in  the  youth  of  fifteen.  He 
went  about  from  village  to  village  with  Malan's  "  mission- 
aries," denouncing  the  CathoUc  reUgion  as  anti-Christ, 
setting  forth  the  Gospel,  and  "  desiring  nothing  so  much 
as  to  become  one  of  that  zealous  band,  who  had  given 
up  all  to  spread  the  pure  word  of  God  in  the  dark  places 
of  the  earth  " — i.e.,  in  the  CathoUc  Cantons  of  Switzerland  ! 
"  Constance,"  he  says,  "is  so  much  under  the  curse  of 
God  for  the  burning  of  John  Huss  that  there  is  scarcely 
one  Christian  known  of  in  the  town  !" 

But  even  under  this  strong  Calvinistic  influence  his 
natural  instinct  for  right  action  comes  out. 

"  How  curious  is  fate,"  he  wrote  to  his  mother  in  1820. 
"  We  cannot  pass,  I  really  beUeve,  a  thousandth  part  of  a 
hand-breadth  of  our  chain.     Not  that  I  think  we  are  bhndly 

1  Urquhart  had  been  his  mother's  constant  companion  from 
infancy.  Left  a  widow  while  he  was  still  a  young  chUd,  all  her  devo- 
tion was  centred  upon  him.  Her  great  desire  was  that  he  should 
gain  a  knowledge  of  men  and  things  before  "he  went  into  abstruse 
studies,"  which  she  had  observed  "  hardened  the  feelings  and 
destroyed  the  heart." 


34  DAVID  URQUHART 

to  follow  without  consideration;  we  must  make  use  of 
our  judgment  and  do  all  for  the  best.  That  is  our  part, 
and  things  will  only  be  blessed  to  us  in  so  far  as  we  act 
after  these  principles,  but  still  our  allotted  part  will  be 
the  unchangeable  same.  For  the  determination  of  the 
Almighty  is  unchangeable." 

In  order  to  break  the  Malan  influence  Mrs.  Urquhart 
sent  David  to  travel  in  Spain  for  six  months  with  a  tutor. 

When  the  lad  was  close  upon  sixteen  mother  and  son 
returned  to  England.  Coming  back  to  his  native  land 
must  have  been  a  new  experience  for  young  David,  who 
had  been  abroad  since  his  eleventh  year. 

We  have  little  means  of  knowing  how  his  inner  self 
developed  amidst  the  strenuous  activities  of  his  early 
manhood,  which  extended  from  engineering  work  as  an 
operative  at  Woolwich  Arsenal  to  farming  operations. 
These  works  were  evidently  among  the  recreations  of  his 
vacations,  for  at  sixteen  he  matriculated  at  St.  John's 
College,  Oxford.  His  career  was  interrupted  by  ill-health, 
which  drove  him  to  the  South  of  France  before  he  had 
completed  his  course.  Instead  of  returning  he  embarked 
for  Greece  with  Lord  Cochrane,  with  whom  his  half- 
brother  Charles  was  serving  as  a  Naval  Captain. 

At  the  susceptible  age  of  seventeen  he  began  an  intimate 
friendship  with  Jeremy  Bentham,  in  whose  affections  from 
that  time  "  our  David,"  as  he  always  calls  him  in  writing 
to  his  mother,  held  a  high  place.  That  the  old  Sago  appre- 
ciated fully  his  unusual  mental  endowments  is  evident  in 
a  letter  answering  one  of  Mrs.  Urquhart 's  in  1830.  "  David 
has  for  years  been  better  able  to  judge  for  himself  than 
anyone  at  such  a  distance  [he  was  then  in  Greece]  can  judge 
for  him.  The  advice  I  submit  to  you  is  to  leave  the  matter 
altogether  to  himself,  accompanied  with  information  of  the 
utmost  you  are  able  to  do  or  obtain  for  him  in  the  way  of 
money."  In  1825  he  had  written  a  letter  of  introduction 
for  him,  beginning:  "  The  bearer,  David  Urquhart,  though 
rather  too  constitutionally  born  and  bred,  which  he  cannot 
help,  poor  fellow  !  is  an  intimate  and  most  worthy  friend 
of  mine,  in  whom  I  have  entire  confidence." 

Probably  close  friendship  with  the   old  utilitarian  de- 


WHAT  MAJSTNER  OF  MAN  HE  WAS  35 

veloped  Urquhart's  strong  sense  of  the  place  of  law  in 
morality.  Perhaps  he  unconsciously  absorbed  from  him 
that  belief  in  and  dependence  upon  reason,  that  scornful 
contempt  for  stupidity  or  loose  thought,  that  characterised 
him  all  his  life.  There  was  always  about  him  a  clear-cut 
hardness  and  a  secure  superiority  which  recall  Bentham 
and  his  school. 

His  real  spiritual  awakening  Urquhart  dates  from  the 
rebuke  given  to  him  by  the  Mussulman  soldier  at  a  time  when, 
"  fortunately,"  he  says,  "  I  was  young  enough  for  the 
sense  of  shame  not  to  be  extinguished,  and  not  having 
passed  through  the  ordinary  routine  of  education,  nor 
having  learnt  to  sneer  at  what  is  different  to  ourselves,  .  .  . 
I  found  for  the  first  time  the  perception  of  a  human  being." 
It  is  on  the  "  perception  of  a  human  being  "  that  David 
Urquhart  afterwards  takes  his  stand.  "It  is  merely  the 
natural  law  which  makes  men  men  and  not  beasts,  that 
I  ask  you  to  observe,"  he  says. 

Her  position  as  a  great  lawgiver  and  disciplinarian 
attracted  him  nearly  all  his  hfe  to  the  Catholic  Church. 
But  the  attraction  was  on  the  intellectual  side;  no  allow- 
ance is  made  for  feeling. 

This  probably  accounts  for  the  curious  sense  of  aridity 
with  which,  in  spite  of  our  admiration,  Urquhart's  life  and 
writings  so  often  inspire  us.  Even  his  wife,  with  her  evan- 
gelical piety,  did  not  dispel  it. 

To  the  end  of  his  life  Urquhart  remained  apparently 
aloof  from  human  emotion,  human  passions,  human  weak- 
ness; the  homely  and  comfortable  things  which  surround 
other  men's  public  work  had  no  place  in  his.  The  gracious 
play  of  feehng,  of  sympathy,  the  delicate  Ught  and  shade 
which  make  the  lives  of  so  many  great  men  like  pleasant 
green  hills,  down  which  the  streams  bubble,  on  which 
flocks  feed  and  lambs  play,  and  which  shelter  in  their  folds 
little  dwellings,  whose  blue  smoke  rises  into  the  blue  heavens, 
seem  to  have  no  place  in  that  life  of  stern  austerity  and 
unremitting  work.  Urquhart  stood  like  a  clean-cut  rock, 
alone,  inaccessible,  unsmiling,  unaffected  by  rain  or  sun- 
shine, yet  all  the  while  bearing  in  nooks  and  crannies 
flowery   treasures    for    those   who    knew   where   to   look, 


36  DAVID  URQUHART 

touching  memories,  unexpected  tendernesses  and  sensitive 
affections.  Little  remarks  here  and  there  will  show  how 
the  really  human  heart  of  the  man  suffered  and  loved.  He 
and  his  wife  were  all  in  all  to  each  other.  "We  are  most 
happy,"  he  writes,  when  nearly  at  the  end  of  his  life,  to  a 
friend  in  England,  "  and  often  wonder  if  there  ever  lived 
on  earth  two  persons  as  happy  as  we  are." 

The  people  whom  he  admitted  to  his  friendship  had  great 
power  to  hurt  him.  He  could  spend  sleepless  nights  over 
the  sorrows  of  a  working-man  friend  whom  he  had  not  seen 
for  twelve  years. 

"  Do  you  think  that  I  am  destitute  of  human  feelings," 
he  writes  to  a  friend,  "that  I  could  receive  a  letter  with 
all  those  suppositions  about  myself  from  one  to  help  whom 
in  the  discharge  of  his  duty  I  have  been  labouring  both 
by  night  and  day,  with  any  other  feeUngs  than  those  of 
great  pain  and  extreme  surprise  ?" 

As  a  child  he  was  affectionate  and  sensitive  to  an  almost 
inconceivable  degree.  A  story  is  told  that  when  he  was  still 
an  infant  in  his  nurse's  arms,  his  father  came  in  hurriedly 
and  went  out  again  without  noticing  him.  The  little  David 
burst  into  a  passion  of  grief  which  nearly  cost  him  his  life. 

Nevertheless,  David  Urquhart,  to  most  men  of  his  time, 
stood  strange,  uncompromising,  unadorned,  the  preacher  of 
righteousness,  that  comes  by  the  works  of  the  law  in  an 
age  which  preferred  to  beUeve  only  in  such  righteousness 
as  could  be  had  without  works.  For  those  were  the  days 
when  English  statesmen  could  openly  avow  that  Inter- 
national Law  was  no  concern  of  theirs;  they  were  the 
days  when  capitalists  grew  rich  on  the  labour  of  babes, 
put  to  work  as  soon  as  they  could  totter,  while  Pharisees 
of  the  school  of  Hannah  Moore  were  preaching  to  the  poor 
their  duty  of  submission  and  respect  to  their  betters. 

The  love  of  International  and  National  Justice  was  dead. 
The  one  had  been  slowly  dying  since  the  Peace  of  West- 
phalia, the  other  had  received  its  death  blow  when,  at  the 
demolition  of  the  monasteries,  lands,  which  had  kept  many 
in  contentment,  were  seized  to  enrich  those  whom  the 
King  delighted  to  honour. 

And  the  nations  were  blindly  content  with  this  state  of 


WHAT  MANNER  OF  MAN  HE  WAS  37 

things.  To  arouse  them  a  seer  was  wanted.  That  seer 
David  Urquhart  undoubtedly  was.  But  he  was  the  voice 
of  one  crjdng  in  the  wilderness.  Like  Jeremiah  he  stood 
and  cried  aloud  to  the  inhabitants  of  Europe.  He  told 
them  of  their  iniquities,  of  which  they  were  filHng  up  the 
measure.  He  told  them  of  the  woe  that  would  come  upon 
them :  nothing  short  of  a  universal  catastrophe  which  would 
involve  the  whole  of  Europe. 

And  who  can  say  to-day  that  he  was  not  a  true  prophet  ? 
"I  see  as  clearly  with  the  eye  of  the  mind  as  others  do 
with  the  eye  of  the  body,"  he  said.  He  belonged  by  birth 
to  that  mysterious  race  of  the  Celt  which,  for  whatever 
reason,  possesses  psychic  sight,  from  whom  reahties  are 
wont  to  be  hidden  by  the  thinnest  of  veils.  In  Urquhart 
even  that  scarcely  existed.  The  account  he  gives  of  his 
dream  hfe  shows  how  abnormally  his  sub -consciousness  was 
developed. 

"  In  my  dreams,"  he  says  in  a  letter  to  a  friend,  "  I  am 
a  being  of  a  higher  order  than  in  my  waldng  state,  for  I 
can  not  only  imagine  what  is  beyond  my  power  to  imagine 
when  I  am  awake,  but  also  can  represent  those  imagined 
things  to  the  senses  as  if  real.  I  see  the  landscape  and  its 
colours,  I  see  endless  vistas  of  statues  never  seen  with  the 
waking  eyes,  and  groves  of  bas-reliefs  of  the  most  exquisite 
beauty.  I  see  the  most  intricate  designs,  endless,  never  the 
same,  and  as  entirely  original  in  conception  as  they  are 
perfect  in  execution.  They  convey  the  most  exquisite 
enjoyment,  and  to  that  extent,  that  when  my  waking  eye 
takes  in  an  object  with  pleasure,  it  seems  but  the  faint 
reflection  or  memory  of  what  I  have  enjoyed  in  sleep.  That 
sleep  existence  is  infinitely  more  intense  than  the  waldng 
one.  I  labour  more,  I  never  rest,  I  see  more,  understand 
more,  enjoy  more,  and  suffer  more.  I  am  the  while  causing 
myself  to  suffer,  to  enjoy,  to  understand,  and  all  this  in 
various  persons  at  the  same  time.  I  can  do  things  when 
asleep  that  I  cannot  do  when  awake.  I  can  do  that  which 
when  awake  I  can  only  appreciate.  If,  then,  in  another  state 
I  can  accomplish  what  I  cannot  in  this,  there  needs  must 
be  a  faculty  in  the  mind  higher  than  its  own  powers  of 
apprehension.  It  is  in  me  all  the  time,  only  latent  at 
some  time,  and  that  sometime  is  our  normal  state  when 
awake." 


38  DAVID  URQUHART 

This  subconsciousness  that  worked  constantly  in  his 
sleep  worked  unconsciously  in  his  waking  hours  and  made 
of  David  Urquhart  a  mystic.  It  is  easy  to  recognise  in 
his  description  of  his  dream  state  the  mystical  tempera- 
ment. It  showed  itself  in  other  ways,  notably  in  his  extra- 
ordinary perception  of  what  was  in  man.  In  conversation 
with  his  friends  he  would  startle  them  by  answering  aloud 
their  thought  rather  than  their  speech.  One  very  remark- 
able story  is  told  of  his  supernatural  power  of  discernment. 
A  great  friend  was  anxious  to  bring  his  son  to  see  and  be 
introduced  to  the  great  man.  The  meeting  had  been 
arranged  with  difficulty;  Urquhart  was  in  England  only 
for  a  short  time,  for  the  incident  took  place  towards  the 
end  of  his  life,  when  his  permanent  home  was  in  Savoy. 
But  the  youth  must  not  be  deprived  of  an  interview  he 
would  remember  all  his  life.  When  the  day  came  David 
Urquhart  was  in  a  somewhat  suffering  state,  and  was  lying 
on  the  couch  in  his  sitting-room  at  the  hotel.  The  sofa 
was  in  such  a  position  that  the  person  entering  could  not 
at  once  see  it,  so  that  when  the  youth  came  into  the  room 
Urquhart  could  only  see  his  hand  opening  the  door.  But 
that  was  enough  for  him.  Quick  as  lightning  he  left  his 
couch  and  darted  into  his  bedroom,  whence  no  persuasions 
or  entreaties  of  his  wife  could  withdraw  him.  "  No,"  he 
said,  "  I  will  not  see  him;  I  will  not  be  in  the  same  room 
with  that  young  man.  The  hand  I  saw  is  the  hand  of  a 
criminal  !"  Not  long  after  the  youth  brought  himself 
within  reach  of  the  law  for  forgery . 

Urquhart  had  that  true  and  delicate  perception  of  evil 
and  strong  (almost  physical)  loathing  of  it,  which  we  are 
accustomed  to  associate  with  the  Saints  and  mystics  of  the 
Catholic  Church.  Of  such  we  hoar  how  they  faint  in  the 
presence  of  sin ;  how  they  can  see  into  the  heart  of  a  sinner ; 
how  the  sight  of  one  venial  sin  is  to  them  torment  un- 
speakable. At  first  sight  Urquhart  seems  to  have  little  in 
common  with  a  Catholic  Saint.  Wo  look  in  vain  for  the 
shrinking  from  notice,  the  dependence  on  Divine  help,  the 
rapt  states  of  prayer,  the  patience,  meekness  and  out- 
ward humility  that  seem  inseparable  from  the  saintly 
character.     But  looking  more  closely  there  is  more  likeness 


WHAT  MANNER  OF  MAN  HE  WAS  39 

than  appears  at  first  sight.     The  unique  sign  of  the  saintly 
life  is  the  crucifixion  of  self.     "  I  die  daily,"  says  St.  Paul. 
To  kill  self-love  was  the  first  step  in  Urquhart's  training  of 
his  disciples.     The  entire  abnegation  of  self  was  his  own 
ideal.     "Be    ye    therefore   perfect,"    is    the    standard   set 
before  the  Saint.     "  To  be  a  Christian  is  to  be  right  in  all 
things,"  said  Urquhart.     But  with  him  harshness  towards 
himself  was  not  joined  with  leniency  towards  others.     He 
exacted  from  others  what  he  exacted  from  himself.     And 
there  lies  the  secret  both  of  his  power  and  of  his  failure, 
his  power  with  the  few,  his  failure  with  the  many.     For  it 
is  only  the  few  who  are  what  Professor  James  calls  the 
twice-born,  and  one  of  these  was  Urquhart  himself.      He 
had  been  born  again  and  washed  and  made  whole ;  he  never 
returned  to  his  wallowing  in  the  mire.     Having  seen,  hke 
the  souls  of  Plato's  myth,  one  of  the  attributes  of  God,  His 
eternal  righteousness  and  justice,  with  the  clear  vision  of 
the  mystic,  he  could  never  again  take  man's  counterfeits 
and   call  them   righteousness   and   justice.     Such   to   him 
were  always  base  and  evil,  even  the  least  noxious  of  them, 
and  he  counted  them  as  sin,  and  to  him  there  was  no  such 
thing    as  venial  sin.     Sin  was  always  base  and  without 
excuse. 

Had  Urquhart  had  the  full  vision  of  the  Saint,  had  he 
been  beaten  to  the  ground  as  St.  Paul  was  in  his  journey 
to  Damascus  beneath  the  full  rays  of  the  Sun  of  Righteous- 
ness, he  would  have  known  the  gentleness  and  patience, 
the  almost  infinite  love  and  tenderness  of  the  saintly  soul. 
But  hidden  in  a  cleft  of  the  rock  he  had  seen  but  the  skirt 
of  God's  garment  of  justice  that  covers  the  world  and  hides 
as  well  as  reveals  Him.  Therefore  he  became  a  seer  and 
a  prophet;  he  missed  being  a  saint.  "  I  do  not  understand 
good,"  he  says,  "  I  only  understand  evil.  I  know  I  must 
resist  sin  in  myself  and  evil  in  others."  He  saw  this  with 
his  whole  being,  and  he  did  it  to  the  death. 

But  his  idea  of  evil  was  very  concrete.     He  would  not 

allow  that  a  man  should  accuse  himself  of  cowardice,  or 

avarice,  or  injustice  in  the  abstract.     That  conduced  to 

false  humility  and  indolence.     After  all  there  is  a  comfort 

in  labelling  oneself  and  saying:  "  Well  there  it  is;  that  is 


40  DAVID  URQUHART 

what  I  am.  What  else  can  you  expect  of  me  but  such 
things  ?"  But  a  man  can  be  guilty  of  a  coward  act,  of 
an  unjust  act,  of  an  avaricious  act.  It  is  of  these  that  he 
has  to  repent,  and  the  proof  of  his  repentance  will  be, 
Urquhart  maintained,  as  in  his  own  case,  the  impossibihty 
of  committing  such  an  act  again.  It  is  so  with  all  the 
brotherhood  of  the  twice-born,  and  Urquhart  knew  no 
other. 

"  He  (one  of  his  disciples)  said  to  me  that  he  was  cowardly 
and  could  not  do  this.  I  said  to  him : '  You  are  not  cowardly, 
because  there  is  no  such  thing  as  courage.  It  is  not  a  thing 
— courage:  it  is  merely  the  character  of  an  act.  The  act 
has  reference  to  the  means  of  judging  of  the  thing.  If  a 
man  understands,  he  does  that  which  is  right  to  do,  and 
he  will  therefore  neither  be  courageous,  nor  will  he  be  timid, 
and  there  will  be  no  idea  either  of  bravery  or  of  cowardice. 
A  man  must  err  in  act  and  err  in  judgment  of  that  act, 
when  he  refers  to  the  presence  of  cowardice  for  the  deficiency 
of  the  performance  of  his  duty.  Not  understanding  what 
you  have  got  to  do,  if  you  do  less  than,  with  such  a  know- 
ledge as  you  do  possess,  you  might  effect;  or,  not  under- 
standing what  you  have  to  do,  if  you  attempt  more  than 
you  can  accomplish  you  will  have  erred  in  both  cases. 
And  he  who  looks  to  the  highest  part  of  his  own  soul  will 
think  of  that  error.  It  is  only  he,  who  does  not  go  to  it 
but  who  hangs  behind,  who  will  speak  of  courage  or 
cowardice.  Not  going  to  the  source,  not  only  will  he  not 
correct  himself,  but  he  will  have  his  mind  carried  away 
from  attention  to  those  means  by  which  he  would  correct 
himself,  which  was  by  better  knowledge  of  the  matter 
upon  which  he  has  to  act,  or  a  better  arrangement  of  that 
mind  by  which  he  has  to  judge." 

"  To  attribute  character  and  tendencies  to  the  mind,  and 
to  judge  of  the  capacities  of  a  man  by  them  is,"  he  goes  on 
to  say,  "as  if  one  found  abstract  ideas  of  the  ills  suffered 
by  a  man  in  sickness  and  tried  thereby  to  remedy  the 
disease.  It  is  by  this  fatal  habit  that  disease  and  decay 
go  unchecked  in  men  and  nations,  and  such  decay  is,  as 
a  rule,  only  arrested  by  means  of  someone  simple-minded 
and  uninstructed." 

Here  speaks  the  age-long  passion  for  reality  of  the  twice- 
born,  the  getting  at  the  thing  which  lies  behind  the  ab- 
stractions which  veil  it  from  our  crooked  minds,  the  simple 


WHAT  MANNER  OF  MAN  HE  WAS  41 

and  direct  vision  of  one  who  knows,  who  remembers  what 
he  saw  in  the  heavens. 

In  the  same  conversation  Urquhart  tells  how  he  had 
himself  once  had  to  write  down  at  the  request  of  a  phren- 
ologist whom,  with  great  reluctance,  probably  at  the  urgent 
request  of  his  mother,  he  had  consulted,  what  he  considered 
to  be  his  own  mental  and  moral  characteristics.  He  passed 
in  review,  he  says,  various  qualifications  and  various  de- 
ficiencies he  thought  he  might  possess,  and  in  every  instance 
that  might  prove  the  possession  of  such  a  quality  or  de- 
ficiency he  found  that  they  were  all  due  to  knowledge  or 
ignorance  of  facts,  of  judgment,  or  misjudgment.  And  on 
the  quality  of  judgment,  on  which  all  depended,  he  could 
not  speak  at  all,  because  it  was  himself,  and  he  could  not 
see  it  because  through  that  he  saw  other  things.  He  was 
therefore  reduced  to  presenting  the  phrenologist  with  a 
sheet  of  blank  paper. 

Self-examination  was  one  of  the  first  things  that  Urquhart 
taught  his  disciples,  but  it  was  their  acts  and  omissions 
they  were  to  examine.  They  were  not  allowed  to  take 
refuge  from  them  in  generahties.  The  religion  of  the 
ordinary  rehgious  person  was,  he  declared,  a  mockery, 
because,  instead  of  binding  to  his  soul  the  commandments 
of  God  and  fulfilling  them  in  his  public  as  well  as  in  his 
private  life,  he  hugged  to  himself  generalities,  among  them 
the  dangerous  heresy  that  reUgion  was  an  affair  of  a  man's 
own  soul  and  had  nothing  to  do  with  politics  or  public 
affairs.  It  was  by  indulging  in  generahties  that  people 
could  thank  God  for  the  conclusion  of  an  unjust  peace,  that 
wealthy  coal-owners  could  speak  at  meetings  for  the  aboli- 
tion of  negro  slavery,  while  little  girls  of  four  and  five  were 
working  for  more  than  twelve  hours  a  day  as  trappers  in 
their  mines. 

Anyone  can  see  this  now;  how  many  people  saw  it  when 
Urquhart  denounced  the  Chinese  War  and  declaimed  against 
the  social  conditions  of  his  day  ? 

A  most  vivid  and  illuminating  description  of  Urquhart 
in  the  full  tide  of  his  power  and  work  is  contained  in  a 
letter  by  a  still  living  writer.  Her  husband,  a  member  of 
one  of  the  great  Polish  families  whose  life  was  spent  in 


42  DAVID  URQUHART 

struggling  for  the  freedom  of  his  people,  found  in  Urquhart 
a  friend  ever  stanch  and  faithful  to  the  cause  of  Poland. 

The  letter  was  written  from  London  in  1862  to  a  friend 
in  Poland. 

"  You  have  probably  heard  the  name  of  Urquhart.  That 
man  is  a  phenomenon,  and  to  have  met  him  makes  an 
epoch  in  one's  life.  I  do  not  know  how  to  express,  for  I 
do  not  understand  myself  the  impression  he  has  made  upon 
me.  I  heard  a  lecture  of  his  on  the  Law  of  Nations;  he 
spoke  for  nearly  three  hours,  and  I  was  sorry  when  he  had 
done.  I  think  he  did  not  hesitate  once  or  repeat  a  single 
time  the  same  thought.  He  was  repeatedly  interrupted 
and  drawn  into  a  new  current  of  thought.  These  thoughts 
flowed  again,  and  to  an  unobservant  listener  it  would  have 
seemed  he  had  hardly  time  to  collect  or  develop  them.  He 
followed  them  up  in  the  same  way  as  if  he  were  ascending 
a  flight  of  steps,  straight  before  him,  not  turning  right  or 
left,  but  at  each  step  disclosing  new  horizons.  I  said  to 
myself:  '  This  man  is  a  genius,  but  strange  to  say,  for  all 
that  he  is  disagreeable.'  He  has  stayed  with  us  three  days; 
it  is  the  third  time  he  has  done  so  since  we  have  been  here. 
He  left  to-day.  However  strong  is  the  feeling  that  I  could 
hate  him,  I  know  there  are  wonderful  depths  in  him  and 
that  there  is  something  which  God  must  have  put  in  the 
heart  of  man  at  the  beginning  of  the  world,  which  our 
civilisation  has  destroyed  and  corrupted.  He  is  as  learned 
as  a  Lexicon;  this  is  a  help,  but  not  his  principal  weapon. 
His  strongest  argument  is  '  justice,'  or,  rather,  '  truth.' 
He  says  that  all  trouble  and  disquiet  in  this  world  originate 
in  the  confusions  of  the  notions  of  right  and  wrong  in  every 
man's  mind.  That  Russia  is  most  to  be  blamed  for  this 
confusion.  That  formerly  people  did  wrong,  but  there  was 
a  judgment  upon  them,  that  now  no  one  has  any  inde- 
pendence of  judgment.  That  Russia  has  corrupted  and 
loosened  politics  and  diplomacy  in  the  whole  world,  and 
that,  in  consequence,  anyone  who  wishes  to  serve  truth  is 
bound  to  wage  war  without  mercy  with  her  and  with  all 
that  serves  her  views,  whether  consciously  or  unconsciously. 
This  is  why  he  got  acquainted  with  my  husband.  He 
upbraids  everyone  with  being  untruthful,  and  when  he 
begins  to  convince  you  of  some  prevarication  or  cowardice, 
or  concession  to  wrong,  or  turning  aside  from  the  right 
path,  such  as  bowing  to  the  golden  calf,  or  prejudice,  etc., 
etc.,  without  end,  willingly  or  not  one  enters  into  one's 


WHAT  MANNER  OF  MAN  HE  WAS  43 

conscience  and  looks  at  it  in  a  new  light.  And  it  is  im- 
possible to  deny  that  he  is  in  the  right  in  many,  many  ways. 
He  told  me :  '  Vous  aviez  un  fond  de  caractere  (I  think  he 
meant  honesty)  qui  etait  une  force  mais  qui  est  de  venue, 
n'etant  pas  bien  dirigee,  un  embarras,  et  ce  qui  vous  etait 
donne  comme  une  force  n'est  qu'une  faiblesse  maintenant.' 
And  he  speaks  in  this  way  to  everyone,  when  he  does  not 
say  a  thousand  times  stronger  things.  The  shades  of  right 
and  wrong  which  are  very  delicately  pencilled  in  the  very 
depths  of  one's  soul  and  do  not  show  at  the  surface  '  il 
vous  somme  de  les  faire  paraitre.' 

"But  it  is  quite  useless  my  trying  to  write  about  him, 
he  is  impossible  to  describe.  He  goes  about  like  a  comet 
with  an  immense  tail  of  followers  from  every  possible  class 
of  society,  who  believe  in  him  as  in  the  Gospel.  And 
whoever  is  not  with  him  is  against  him.  He  is  called 
'  madman,'  '  charlatan,'  I  know  not  what.  He  is  known 
by  everyone,  but  it  is  sufficient  to  name  him  in  society 
here  to  be  classed  as  a  fool.  You  are  laughed  at  in 
the  face  and  asked,  '  Oh,  you  are  Urquhartite  ?  Very 
well  !'  But  not  only  is  one  looked  at  as  a  fool,  but  also  as 
a  spy  in  the  camp,  for  people  are  afraid  of  him.  He  brings 
to  light  and  shows  to  the  public  view  all  the  mean  dealings 
and  bribery  of  the  English  Ministers.  He  is  ready  to  work 
night  and  day,  to  sacrifice  health  and  property  for  the  sake 
of  Poland.  He  will  thunder  out  to  you,  '  What  is  Poland 
to  me  ?  Poland  is  nothing  to  me:  it  is  justice  that  I  am 
seeking  and  working  for.'  Someone  asked  him  why  he 
was  friends  with  my  husband.  '  We  are  never  of  the  same 
opinion,'  he  answered,  '  but  it  is  a  man  who  has  given  up 
everything  that  is  personal  for  the  sake  of  what  is  right, 
and  that  is  why  I  am  his  friend.'  That  Lord  R.  who  is 
being  sent  to  Berlin  is  his  pupil,  but  does  not  equal  his 
master  by  far ;  he  is  in  love  with  him,  though  often  disappoint- 
ing. Mr.  Urquhart  says  of  him  that  for  fear  of  his  con- 
stituents he  (Lord  R.)  dare  not  speak  out  or  act  as  his 
conscience  bids,  and  adds :  '  I  do  not  trust  him  for  a  moment ; 
I  have  had  to  struggle  with  his  ambition  (in  office),  and 
now  I  have  to  struggle  with  his  cowardice  ' ;  and  that  he 
says  not  only  of  him  but  to  him. 

"  I  do  not  know  why  I  write  all  this,  but  I  will  have  to 
meet  him  all  along,  and  I  cannot  well  write  when  you  know 
nothing  of  the  people  we  have  to  deal  with.  When  his 
course  of  lectures  come  out  I  will  send  them  to  you;  please 
read  them  with  attention." 


CHAPTER  II 

THE   EAST  AND  THE   WEST:  URQUHART  AT 
CONSTANTINOPLE 

"  Still  eyes  look  coldly  upon  me; 
Cold  voices  wliisyiei-  and  say — 
He  is  crazed  with  the  spell  of  far  Arabia, 
They  have  stolen  liis  wits  away." 

Waltek  be  la  Mare. 

Urquhart's  knowledge  of  the  East,  his  love  for  the  Turk 
.andjiatred  of  the  Russian  began  with  the  Greek  War  of 
Independence. 

After  the  Treaty  of  Adrianople,^  though  Capodistrias 
had  offered  him  the  command  of  a  civil  Province,  he  spent 
his  time  in  studying  the  ancient  Municipal  Institutions, 
first  in  Greece  and  afterwards  in  Turkey.  During  a  visit 
to  Constantinople  the  knowledge  of  mineralogy  which  he 
acquired  in  vacation  excursions  from  his  private  tutor  at 
Oxford,  Gerald  Smith,  brought  him  to  the  notice  of  the 
Sultan.  This  knowledge  which  had  been  to  him  a  form 
of  recreation  stood  him  in  good  stead,  for  it  introduced  him 
to  the  Seraglio,  and  was  the  beginning  of  his  subsequent 
and  often  intimate  relationships  Avith  successive  members 
of  the  Turkish  Government. 

Like  M.  Le  Play,  he  applied  the  methods  of  scientific 
investigation  to  the  study  of  the  East. 

Returning  in  1830  to  England  through  Albania,  which 
had  broken  out  into  revolution,  he  published  his  observa- 
tions in  a  series  of  articles  in  the  Courier.  They  attracted 
the  notice  of  William  IV.,  who  had  already  heard  much  of 
this  brilliant  youth  through  his  private  secretary.  Sir 
Herbert  Taylor,  a  lifelong  friend  of  his  mother. 

It  seemed  as  though  Urquhart's  career  was  made. 

*•  See  Biographical  Sketch  in  the  Conversations  Lexicon. 

44 


URQUHART  AT  CONSTANTINOPLE  45 

In  the  year  1831  Sir  Stratford  Canning,  Envoy  Extra- 
ordinary to  Constantinople,  sent  the  young  man,  then  only 
twenty-six,  on  a  secret  mission  to  Albania  to  induce  the 
Grand  Vizier,  Reschid  Mohammed  Pasha,  to  renounce  his 
intention  of  carrying  the  power  of  Albania  against  Greece, 
a  measure  which  would  probably  have  resulted  in  the 
complete  subjugation  of  that  country.  Urquhart  met 
Reschid  Mohammed  at  Scodra,  and  was  successful  in  his 
enterprise.  His  mission  accomplished,  he  returned  home 
through  Wallachia,  Moldavia,  Austria  and  Germany, 
making  observations  all  the  way.  He  was  much  struck 
with  the  German  Customs  Union, ^  and  seems  to  have  seen 
at  a  glance  the  probable  effects  on  English,  indeed  on 
European,  commercial  interests.  More  clearly  still  were 
his  eyes  opened  to  the  deliberate  hostility  of  Russia  to 
European  development.  "With  these  ideas  in  his  mind  he 
determined  to  travel  through  Europe  and  Asia,  and  to 
make  far-reaching  observations  as  to  the  political  and  com- 
mercial conditions  prevailing  in  the  countries  most  exposed 
to  Russian  influences. 

His  plan  involved  a  journey  through  Prussia  and  Austria 
down  the  Danube  to  Trebizond,  through  Persia  and  Central 
Asia,  and  finally  through  Tartary  to  China. 

Through  his  friends  at  Court,  Urquhart  succeeded  in 
commending  his  scheme  to  the  Secretary  of  the  Board  of 
Trade,  and  was  sent  out  again  with  a  practically  free  hand 
to  make  commercial  investigations  in  Europe  and  Asia. 

But  arriving  in  Turkey  he  was  struck  with  the  growing 
hostility  of  the  Sublime  Porte  to  England — due,  as  he  believed 
he  had  discovered,  largely  to  Russian  machinations.  He 
renounced,  therefore,  for  the  present,  his  plan  of  proceeding 
to  the  Far  East  and  settled  down  in  Turkey,  determined  to 
bring  about  as  good  an  understanding  between  the  Otto- 
man Empire  and  his  own  country  as  existed  between 
himself  and  the  Sultan. 

To  this  end  he  made  himself  as  a  Turk.  He  lived  in  a 
Turkish  house,   surrounded  himself  with  Turks,   both  as 

^  He  published  his  impressions  on  tlie  j)robable  effect  of  that 
TJniou  in  an  article  in  ths  British  and  Foreign  Review,  Oct.  1835. 


46  DAVID  URQUHART 

servants  and  as  friends,  became  complete  master  of  the 
language,  and  rose  so  high  in  the  esteem  of  his  adopted 
countrymen  that  they  treated  him  in  all  respects  as  one 
of  themselves,  even  to  giving  him  the  Turkish  Temena  or 
salutation,  which  as  a  rule  they  bestow  upon  none  but  the 
sons  of  the  Prophet. 

One  result  of  the  long  residence  in  the  East  was  the 
Turkish  Commercial  Treaty  which  he  drew  up  and  sub- 
mitted to  both  the  English  and  Turkish  Governments. 

Diplomatist  as  he  was  by  choice,  he  saw  in  commerce 
the  firmest  bond  for  the  union  of  Peoples,  as  well  as  one  of 
the  most  powerful  weapons  for  world  dominion  in  the 
hands  of  an  unscrupulous  Government.  In  a  close  commer- 
cial union  with  Turkey  there  was,  he  maintained,  not  only 
the  possibihty  of  a  vast  increase  of  trade  with  England,  but 
a  most  effectual  means  of  combating  that  insidious  method 
of  conquest  by  diplomacy  and  trade  whereby  Russia  was 
enlarging  her  borders  and  increasing  her  sphere  of  influence. 

In  1833  he  published  Turkey  and  her  Resources,  an  epoch- 
making  work  in  the  history  of  the  Eastern  Question.^ 
The  Conversations  Lexicon  speaks  of  it  as  "  one  of  the 
most  surprising  productions  in  literature,"  and  there  is 
no  doubt  that  the  amount  of  fresh  knowledge  brought  by 
it  within  reach  of  Europeans,  and  the  originality  of  its 
conclusions  turned  the  thoughts  of  many  of  the  thinkers 

1  Urquliart's  "  Turkey "  lias  never  been  approached,  far  less 
supcrsedecl. 

Sir  AVilliam  White,  the  British  Ambassador  in  Constantinople 
from  1885  to  1891,  Avas  wont  to  say  that  no  one  could  pretend  to 
know  the  East  who  did  not  know  his  "  Urquhart  ";  and  to  this  day 
those  who  have  attained  to  anything  beyond  a  superficial  knowledge 
of  the  baffling  intricacies  of  the  Eastern  Question  echo  his  words. 

Sir  AVilliam  White's  opinion  is,  from  his  first-hand  knowledge 
of  the  East,  of  great  value.  Indeed,  so  far  was  that  knowledge  and 
experience  beyond  that  of  any  of  his  contemporaries  in  the  Diplo- 
matic Service,  that,  notwithstanding  his  having  been  a  mere  consul, 
and  in  spite  of  his  faitli  (ho  was  a  Catholic,  and  there  had  been  no 
Ambassador  of  that  religion  since  the  Reformation),  the  Govern- 
ment could  not  avoid  sending  him  as  Ambassador  to  Constantinople. 

His  policy  was  to  build  up  the  Balkan  States  as  a  bulwark  against 
Russia. 

Sir  William  White  lurnished  the  rare — perhaps,  m  Constantinople, 
the  unique — example  of  an  Ambassador  whose  appointment  was 
due  solely  to  his  being  a  skilled  and  honest  diplomatist. 


URQUHART  AT  CONSTANriNOPLE  47 

among  politicians  towards  the  hitherto  much  misunder- 
stood East.  The  entire  falsity  of  European  ideas  on  the 
whole  Eastern  Question  was  one  which  Urquhart  never 
ceased  to  impress  on  statesmen. 

In  1834  he  published  his  pamphlet  England  and  Russia, 
which  he  sent  to  the  Duke  of  Wellington  with  a  letter^ 
pointing  out  that  the  whole  treatment  of  Turkey  had  been 
systematically  calculated  to  throw  her,   where  of  herself 
she   never  wished  to   be,  into  the  arms    of   Russia,  that 
England's  neglect  had  been  the  opportunity  of  the  Power 
which  made  use  of  any  and  every  means  for  gaining  in- 
fluence and  control.     "  Her  agents,"  he  said,  "  speak  the 
language,  have  access  to  every  office,  and  to  the  intimacy 
of    the    Sultan.     Their    opportunities    are    seized    for    the 
propagation  of  opinions  which,  being  reiterated  day  by  day 
without  contradiction,  are  more  or  less  believed,  and  are  so 
far  accepted  as  to  have  introduced  into  the  Government  a 
feeling   on   foreign  politics  .  .  .  that   no   rehance   can   be 
placed  on  her  promises,  that  the  power  of  England  is  verging 
to  its  decline,  that  Russia  is  about  to  upset  its  dominion 
in  India,   that  the  power  and  resources  of  the   Russian 
Government  are  unlimited,  save  by  the  moderation  of  the 
Emperor."     He  pointed  out  how  ready  the  mass  of  the 
Turkish  people  were  to  beheve  the  contrary  of  "  this,  to 
them,  afflicting  picture."     "  I  have,"  he  says,  "  been  within 
the  last  year  on  the  Western  and  Eastern  frontiers   of 
Turkey,  and  I  can  bear  witness  to  the  universality  of  the 
hopes   that   to   my   utter   amazement   I   found  placed   in 
England  by  every  tribe  and  in  every  hamlet." 

Urquhart  saw  and  never  tired  of  saying  that  Turkey 
with  her  teeming  soil  ought  to  be  England's  market.  He 
also  saw,  and  said  it  to  the  constant  discomfiture  of  the 
Enghsh  Government  and  of  the  Russian  merchants,  that 
Russia  was  working  to  shut  her  out  of  that  market.  He 
pointed  not  only  to  the  Treaty  of  Unkiar  Skelessi,  but  to 
the  blockade  of  the  free  and  independent  state  of  Circassia 
by  Russia  and  to  the  newly  created  provinces  of  WaUachia 
and  Moldavia  which  she  was  trying  to  get  into  her  net. 

I  Foreign  Office  Papers,  266. 


48  DAVID  URQUHART 

It  was  not  only  Urquhart  who  was  alive  to  this 
attitude  of  Russia.  The  British  Consul  at  Belgrade  wrote 
in  1838  to  Her  Majesty's  Government  that  the  Russian 
Agent  was  insistent  in  his  demands  on  Prince  Milosch  of 
Servia  to  give  no  credence  to  the  assurances  of  any  English 
Agent  as  regards  the  settlement  of  the  Servian  Question  at 
Constantinople  if  he  wished  for  Russia's  friendship  and 
protection.  But  Prince  Milosch  rephed  that  "  he  should 
choose  his  own  friends,"  and  the  Consul  earnestly  impressed 
on  Lord  Palmerston  that  "  if  Her  Majesty's  Government 
should  abandon  the  interests  of  Servia  and  expose  Prince 
Milosch  to  the  vengeance  which  awaits  him  at  the  hands 
of  Russia,  British  influence  would  cease  throughout  Euro- 
pean Turkey,  and  all  future  assurances  of  Her  Majesty's 
Government  would  be  received  with  suspicion."^ 

It  was  Urquhart's  great  anxiety  about  the  establish- 
ment of  right  relations  between  Britain  and  the  East  that 
led  him  to  ask  for  an  official  post  in  the  Embassy  at  Con- 
stantinople, where  he  hoped  that  his  friendship  with  Lord 
Ponsonby,  the  Ambassador,  on  the  one  hand,  and  with  the 
Sultan  and  his  ministers  on  the  other,  would  enable  him 
to  attain  his  object.  In  1836,  thanks  to  the  offices  of  the 
old  sailor  King,  William  IV.,  who  had  a  warm  place  in  his 
heart  for  the  young  officer  of  his  own  Service,^  Palmerston 
found  himself  obliged,  evidently  with  great  reluctance,  to 
appoint  Urquhart  to  the  Embassy  of  Constantinople  as 
Eirst  Secretary.  Having  given  him  the  post  he  was  ex- 
tremely anxious  to  get  him  safely  out  of  London,  but 
Urquhart  declined  to  move  until  he  had  obtained  certain 
concessions  from  the  English  Government,  which  would 
make  his  work  possible  and  his  post  not  a  sinecure. 

These  were :  an  immediate  increase  in  the  Navy,  a  closer 
connection  with  France  against  Russia,  the  re-establishment 
of  friendly  relations  between  Persia  and  Turkey,  the  aboli- 
tion of  the  system  of  Dragomans  in  Constantinople  and 
the  conclusion  of  three  Commercial  Treaties,  one  between 
England  and  Turkey,  which  was,  as  it  seemed,  practically 

1  Foreign  Office  Papers,  266,  Oct.  10,  1838. 

^  Urquhart  had  a  Lieutenant's  Comiuissiou  under  Lord  Cochrane. 


URQUHART  AT  CONSTANTINOPLE  49 

settled;  another  between  England  and  Persia,  to  place  a 
limit  on  Russian  influence  in  the  East,  and  another  between 
England  and  Austria,  which  was  practically  a  defensive 
alliance  against  Russia  in  the  West. 

Of  these  points,  two,  the  increase  of  the  Navy  and  the 
Commercial  Treaty  with  Turkey,  were  conceded  without  diffi- 
culty. The  Navy  increase  took  place  almost  at  once,  thanks 
to  the  support  of  William  IV.  Of  the  other  points  none 
was  refused;  the  question  of  the  Dragomans,  which  seemed  to 
Urquhart  most  important,  for  he  declared  the  English  Drago- 
man was  brother  to  the  Russian,  was  promised  careful  con- 
sideration, as  were  also  the  Treaties  with  Persia  and  Austria. 

It  seemed  as  though  anything  was  possible  to  a  young 
man  who  could  so  obtain  the  confidence  of  two  Govern- 
ments before  he  was  thirty,  and  Urquhart  departed  to  his 
post  at  Constantinople  full  of  hope. 

Never  was  there  a  more  disastrous  ending  to  an  under- 
taking which  promised  so  well. 

Urquhart 's  short  diplomatic  career  was  a  conspicuous 
failure.  That  the  failure  was  in  some  measure  attributable 
to  himself  there  is  little  doubt.  He  had  obviously  no  idea 
that  it  was  part  of  his  duty  to  fulfil  the  conventional  func- 
tions of  a  Secretary  of  Embassy.  Instead  of  sedulously 
attending  ambassadorial  functions,  attired  as  a  Secretary  of 
Embassy  should  be  attired,  and  ready  to  enliven  them  with 
the  brilliant  conversation  in  which  he  was  a  past  master,  he 
retired  with  a  friend  to  a  cottage  near  the  Embassy,  where 
he  spent  his  time  in  conversing  with  Turks,  in  study  and  in 
writing.  Only  four  times  in  two  months  did  he  appear  at 
the  Ambassador's  dinner-table.  "  The  English  mission  " 
was  singularly  and  collectively  shocked  at  finding  one  of  its 
official  representatives  adopting  Turkish  dress  and  Turkish 
habits,  and  eating  Turkish  food  in  the  Turkish  manner. 

What  a  blow  to  the  English  j)restige  in  Constantinople  ! 

What  an  unpardonable  lowering  of  the  flag  of  English 
superiority  in  the  face  of  the  Heathen  !^ 

1  See  Foreign  Office  Papers,  309,  78.  Memorandum  by  Mr.  Frazer, 
on  the  differences  between  Lord  Ponsonby  and  Mr.  Urquhart,  July 
27,  1837. 


50  DAVID  URQUHART 

Far  more  serious,  however,  than  the  social  stigma  which 
he  brought  upon  himself  was  the  attitude  which  Lord 
Ponsonby  adopted  towards  the  young  diplomatist  with 
whom  he  had  previously  been  on  the  most  friendly  and 
even    affectionate    terms. ^    When    Urquhart    arrived    in 

1  The  correspondence  found  among  Urquhart's  private  letters 
between  liimselt  and  Lord  Ponsonby,  during  his  visit  to  England 
in  1835-36,  is  like  the  correspondence  between  an  affectionate  and 
intimate  lather  and  son. 

The  following  account  of  his  position  in  Turkey,  however,  from 
a  MSS.  Life  found  among  his  papers,  is  enough  to  show  that  even 
if  it  is  here  exaggerated,  his  position  as  a  Secretary  to  Embassy 
was  quite  incompatible  with  it. 

The  writer  was  a  barrister,  a  friend  of  Urquhart's,  and  the  account 
is  a  conversation  that  he  had  with  a  Greek  commercial  agent,  who 
had  known  Urquhart  dmmg  his  sojourn  in  Turkey. 

"  Mr.  Lovi  (the  Agent):  'The  first  thing  he  did  was  to  adopt  the 
dress  and  customs  as  near  as  possible,  and,  knowing  the  customs  so 
perfectly,  he  u?ed  to  go  into  Turkish  houses,  and  was  received  the 
same  as 'a  Turk,  taking  care  never  to  infringe  upon  the  Turkish 
customs,  that  is  to  say,  always  leaving  the  shoes  at  the  door,  and 
other  things  of  that  kind.  .  .  .  The  consequence  was  that  he  was 
courted  by  all  the  great  men ;  so  much  so  that  even  the  Pashas  would 
come  and  beg  him  to  introduce  them  to  one  another  !  .  .  .  He 
gained  so  much  ground,  that  a  general  order  was  given  in  all  the 
forts  and  fortresses  that  whenever  he  came  a  guard  was  turned  out, 
and  he  was  received  as  if  he  had  been  a  Field -Marshal.  .  .  .  Lord 
and  Lady  Ponsonby  dined  with  Mr.  Urquhart  to  see  the  Turkish 

mode  of  living.'  ■,  ,  .    ,         ^    ^ 

"  3Ir.  Westmacott:  '  In  fact.  Lord  Ponsonby  gamed  his  knowledge 
of  the  East,  and  of  Turkish  manners,  from  what  he  observed  in  Mr. 
Urquhart's  house  V  ,       t, 

"Mr.  Lovi:  'Exactly.  .  .  .  There  is  a  kind  of  officer  sent  by  the 
Government  to  see  that  there  is  no  riot.  He  was  stationed  in  the 
Hall  of  the  Palace.  When  the  Ambassador  would  pass  through  he 
would  take  no  notice,  but  if  Mr.  Urquhart  came  he  jumped  up  ni  a 
moment;  and  this  because  a  Turk  holds  himself  superior  to  any 
Frank.  The  lowest  Turk  will  never  get  up  to  receive  any  Frank. 
Mr.  Urquhart  was  always  received  as  one  of  themselves,  and  with 
even  a  great  deal  more  respect.  ...  On  Mr.  Urquhart's  departure 
after  a  visit  to  Mustapha  Pasha,  he  turned  out  his  body-guard  and 
lined  the  streets  down  to  Mr.  Urquhart's  house.  He  could  not 
have  done  more  if  it  had  been  the  Sultan.  .  .  .  The  Ministers  were 
always  very  much  afraid  that  the  Russians  would  get  to  know  that 
he  (Mr.  Urquhart)  communicated  with  them — I  know  that  Achmet 
Pasha  used  to  send  his  boat  generally  at  midnight  for  him  to  avoid 
observation.  .  .  .  "When  he  went  away  to  England  the  impression 
was  that  he  was  coming  back  as  Ambassador;  that  Lord  Ponsonby 
intended  to  resign  and  that  Mr.  Urquhart  was  to  take  his  place. 
They  look  to  him  as  the  regenerator  of  Turktey  up  to  the  present 

dav.''  "  .  ,     ^ 

"With  such  a  position  as  this  at  his  feet  in  Turkey,  with  the  con. 


URQUHART  AT  CONSTANTINOPLE  51 

Constantinople  in  July,  1836,  as  Secretary,  it  was  to  find 
his  relations  with  the  Ambassador  suddenly  and  entirely 
changed :  the  archives  of  the  Embassy  were  closed  to  him, 
his  work  was  thwarted,  and  his  person  treated  with  con- 
tempt, contempt  that  increased  with  the  lapse  of  time, 
until  at  last  Lord  Ponsonby  refused  to  acknowledge  his 
official  existence  or  to  communicate  with  him  except 
through  the  Dragoman  Pisani.  No  greater  insult  cou'd 
have  been  put  upon  him,  for  Urquhart  had  always  pro- 
tested against  the  presence  of  the  Dragomans  at  the  Em- 
bassy, and  had  refused  to  employ  them  as  intermediaries. 
He  felt  this  treatment  so  acutely  that  his  health  suffered, 
and  the  only  way  in  which  he  could  endure  it  was  to  with- 
draw himself  to  a  Turkish  village  and  there  carry  on  that 
intercourse  with  the  Turks  which  he  had  found  impossible 
in  Constantinople. 

Meanwhile  the  estrangement  between  the  Ambassador 
and  the  First  Secretary  was  common  talk. 

Urquhart  himself  in  after  years  refused  to  beUeve  that 
Lord  Ponsonby  was  really  responsible  for  his  incompre- 
hensible   behaviour.^     He   attributed  it  to  the  deliberate 

fideuce  of  the  King  in  Eugiaud,  with  liis  great  knowledge  oi:  the 
possibilities  and  resources  of  the  East,  and  his  full  couvictiou  of  what 
we  are  just  beginning  to  discover,  the  rottenness  of  the  so-called 
civilisation  of  the  West,  what  a  martyrdom  must  Urquhart  have 
suffered,  when  at  30  years  old  the  gate  to  the  way  of  usefulness  both 
to  Turkey  and  his  own  country  was  suddenly  shut  upon  him  by 
the  suspicion  and  disUke  of  one  man,  and  he  was  bidden,  so  far  as  the 
Government  service  was  concerned,  to  eat  out  his  heart  in  silence 
and  inaction  ! 

^  Mrs.Urquhart,  in  a  letter  written  shortly  before  Lord  Ponsonby's 
death,  in  1855,  give?  a  very  touching  account  of  the  resumption  of 
their  relations.  "  Yesterday,"  she  says,  "  we  went  to  Brighton  by 
appointment  to  call  on  Lord  and  Lady  Ponsonby.  He  was  the 
Ambassador  at  Constantinople  under  whom  David  served  when  he 
was  Secretary  of  Embassy  there.  Since  then,  the  year  1837,  they 
have  never  met.  You  have  heard  of  David's  being  recalled  at  that 
time.  Some  months  ago  Lord  Ponsonby  said  with  much  emotion 
in  the  presence  of  two  or  three  friends  of  D.'s:  'He  is  the  most 
generous  of  men.  I  ruined  him  and  he  has  never  spoken  a  word 
against  me.'  At  the  same  time  he  bore  testimony  to  his  accurate 
judgment  and  his  wonderful  power  of  action. 

"  But  now  I  have  heard  with  my  own  ears  what  he  thinks  of  my 
husband.  He  has  been  very  ill,  and  he  said  something  to  me  of  his 
invalid  state.  I  replied  that  we  never  wanted  him  so  much  as  now. 
On  which  he  turned  to  David,  and  said,  '  There  is  the  man.     He  has 


52  DAVID  URQUHART 

misrepresentations  made  to  the  Ambassador  by  Lord 
Palmerston,  who  was  afraid  of  Urquhart's  anti-Russian 
pohcy,  and  had  adopted  the  plan  of  making  him  harmless 
by  blighting  at  once  and  for  ever  his  diplomatic  career 
in  lieu  of  the  more  direct  means  which  he  would  have 
adopted  had  it  not  been  for  the  King's  affection  for  the 
young  diplomatist. 

At  the  same  time  it  must  be  admitted  that  Urquhart  at 
larc^e  amongst  the  conflicting  interests  and  inflammable 
materials  of  Constantinople  was  "  hke  a  fire-ship  let  loose 
in  the  Bosphorus."  With  his  versatile  genius,  his  extra- 
ordinary knowledge,  his  private  friendship  for  the  Sultan, 
his  great  influence  in  the  Turkish  Government,  he  stood 
forth  the  most  conspicuous  figure  in  Constantinople.  It 
began  to  be  whispered  abroad  that  he  had  come  out  en- 
trusted with  special  powers  from  the  English  Government, 
which  were  to  supersede  those  of  ordinary  diploma,tists. 
Everyone  knew  that  he  was  responsible  for  the  Commercial 
Treaty,  from  which  such  great  things  were  hoped,  and  he 
was  respected  accordingly.  It  was  of  no  avail  that  he 
withdrew  into  obscurity  during  the  first  weeks  of  his  return 
to  Constantinople,  and  ran  the  risk  of  offending  many  of 
his  most  influential  Turkish  friends  by  refusing  to  see  them. 
"  Daoud  Bey  "  was  in  everyone's  eyes,  and  his  name  on 

beeu  at  work  since  the  beginning,  and  lias  been  always  right.  He 
has  never  failed  to  point  out  both  the  wrong  done  and  what  ought 
to  have  been  done.'  More  than  once  he  returned  to  the  subject, 
and  expressed  the  most  complete  concurrence  with  him.  He  can 
think  of  nothing  but  the  state  of  the  country,  which  he  believes  to 
be  desperate.  He  said  he  had  too  good  reason  to  know  that  the  upper 
classes  are  fearfully  worthless,  and  believes  that  the  only  hope  of 
safety  is  in  some  one  man  being  found  fit  to  rescue  the  State  as 
Dictator. 

"  But  what  we  were  able  to  tell  him  of  the  work  going  on  m  the 
North  gave  him  new  conceptions  of  what  might  stUl  be  done. 

"  I  am  sure  he  lay  down  easier  in  his  bed  that  night,  not  only 
from  the  evident  gratification  of  seeing  David,  but  also  from  what 
we  told  him.  He  is  a  magnificent  old  man,  just  84  he  told  me.  I 
have  never  been  in  the  presence  of  any  one  like  him.  I  fear  he  does 
not  leave  one  like  him  behind.  There  is  no  trace  in  others  of  such 
scorn  and  disgust  for  wickedness  or  wrong,  or  that  same  feeling  for 
his  country  that  a  man  has  for  what  is  most  dear  to  him. 

"  David  and  he  will  henceforth  take  counsel  together  for  England, 
as  of  old  they  did  for  Turkey." 


URQUHART  AT  CONSTANTINOPLE  53 

everyone's  lips,  and  doubtless  the  Ambassador  heard  from 
all  quarters  what  great  things  he  was  to  do.  He  would 
not  have  been  human  had  such  a  state  of  things  been  pleasing 
to  him.  Matters  were  not  improved  by  indiscretions  of 
one  of  Urquhart's  friends  who,  in  letters  to  EngUsh  papers, 
combined  strictures  on  the  effete  methods  of  the  Embassy 
with  admiration  for  Urquhart's  knowledge  and  talents. 

Moreover,  it  must  be  admitted  that  neither  then  nor  at 
any  other  time  of  his  life  did  Urquhart  shine  in  a  subordi- 
nate position.  Before  he  went  out  to  Constantinople  he 
wrote  with  all  the  air  of  a  plenipotentiary  to  Backhouse, 
the  Permanent  Under-Secretary  for  Foreign  Affairs:  "I 
saw  the  Turkish  Ambassador  in  Paris,  and  conferred  with 
him  on  the  possibility  of  obtaining  Firmans  from  the  Porte 
for  the  passage  of  an  English  line  of  battleship  through 
the  Dardanelles."  Backhouse  was  left  gasping,  and  Lord 
Palmerston  sent  the  following  very  justifiable  snub:  "Mr. 
Urquhart  must  learn  to  submit  himself  to  the  discipline  of 
the  Service  to  which  he  belongs.  A  private  person  may 
act  on  his  own  impulse,  but  a  Commissioned  Officer  must 
wait  till  he  is  told  to  act.  .  .  .  This  is  a  very  important 
point,  and  unless  Mr.  Urquhart  fully  comprehends  this 
principle  of  duty,  and  is  prepared  to  attend  to  it,  I  should 
think  it  highly  inconvenient  for  the  Public  Service  that  he 
should  go  to  Constantinople.  For  the  reason  above  stated 
I  must  desire  that  Mr.  Urquhart  be  apprised  that  I  highly 
disapprove  of  his  having  held  communication  upon  Public 
Matters  with  the  Turkish  Ambassador  at  Paris  without 
having  been  instructed  or  authorised  by  me  to  do  so."^ 

Mr.  Urquhart  took  the  rebuke  in  a  proper  and  submissive 
spirit.  It  is,  however,  scarcely  Ukely  that  this  was  the  only 
occasion  on  which  he  exceeded  the  very  Umited  powers  of 
a  Secretary  of  Embassy.  It  is  as  easy  to  imagine  Pegasus 
meekly  submitting  to  be  harnessed  to  the  carriage  which 
took  the  Ambassador  for  his  daily  airing  as  David  Urquhart 
patiently  trotting  along  in  the  appointed  routine  of  a 
Secretary  of  Embassy  in  early  Victorian  days. 

It  is  not,  therefore,  surprising  that  his  diplomatic  career 

1  Forciga  Office  Papers,  307. 


54  DAVID  URQUHART 

came  to  an  untimely  end,  under  circumstances  which  pre- 
cluded any  hopes  of  its  resumption.  In  March,  1837,  he 
was  recalled  and  his  papers  cancelled.  Lord  Palmerston 
refusing  to  give  any  reason  beyond  that  of  his  open  dis- 
agreement with  the  Ambassador.  There  is,  however,  one 
circumstance  in  particular  that  serves  to  confirm  Urquhart's 
idea  that  his  removal  was  due  to  Russian  influence  in  the 
English  Cabinet,  and  that  is,  the  confiscation  by  a  Russian 
warship  of  the  merchant  ship  Vixen,  sent  through  his  agency 
to  the  coast  of  Circassia,  and  the  acquiescence  by  Lord 
Palmerston  in  Russia's  refusal  to  pay  any  compensation  to 
her  owners. 

The  story  of  David  Urquhart's  deahngs  with  Circassia  is 
one  of  the  most  romantic  episodes  in  his  life.  He  was  the 
first  Englishman  to  land  on  her  shores,  and  on  his  visit  he 
went  there  quite  alone.  The  beauty  and  splendid  physique 
of  those  mountain  tribes,  living  a  simple,  primitive  life, 
rich  in  noble  tradition  and  in  rare  and  fine  craftsmanship, 
impressed  him,  no  less  than  his  intellect,  the  fire  of  his 
energy  and  his  unique  and  fascinating  personality  attracted 
them.  They  begged  him  to  become  their  chief  and  to  lead 
them,  in  council  as  in  war,  against  the  Russians,  who,  by 
wile  and  cruelty  were  depopulating  their  country  and 
stealing  their  territory.  He  refused,  thinking  to  serve  them 
better  in  his  own  country,  and  even  though  he  failed  in  his 
aim,  the  Circassians  never  lost  faith  in  him.  Twenty  years 
later,  in  the  supreme  hour  of  their  country's  last  agony, 
they  sent  three  of  their  chiefs  to  England,  hoping  still  in 
the  power  and  influence  of  "  Daoud  Bey  "  and  the  great 
nation  in  which  they  still  believed  because  it  was  his. 

All  Urquhart's  chivalry  was  engaged  on  behalf  of  these 
patriarchal  tribes  of  the  Caucasus,  who,  possessing  a  country 
but  the  size  of  Scotland,  had  yet  successfully  resisted  the 
"  million  bayonets  "  which  Russia  declared  Providence  had 
entrusted  to  her.  "  Russia,"  said  Urquhart,  "  has  never 
been  able  to  conquer  the  Circassians  of  the  Black  Sea. 
Still  in  sight  of  the  Russian  fishers  of  Anapa  peasant  girls 
tend  their  flocks,  and  warriors  meet  in  the  open  air  in 
solemn  deliberation.     No  title  could  be  obtained  by  con- 


URQUHART  AT  CONSTANTINOPLE  55 

quest.  No  other  State  had  ever  possessed  Circassia.  Cir- 
cassia,  therefore,  could  never  be  obtained  by  cession.  The 
device  hit  upon  in  this  difficulty  was  simple.  Russia  ceded 
Circassia,  which  she  did  not  possess,  to  Turkey,  in  order 
that  a  few  years  later  she  might  compel  Turkey,  which  in 
like  manner  did  not  possess  it,  to  cede  it  to  Russia." 

This  cession  took  place  under  the  Treaty  of  Adrianople. 
Russia  henceforth  set  to  work  to  subdue  the  Caucasus, 
which  was  an  effectual  bar  to  her  progress  in  the  East.  In 
1831  she  instituted  what  was  practically  a  blockade  of  the 
Circassian  coast,  under  pretext  of  plague  quarantine,  pro- 
hibiting trade  with  any  place,  except  two  stations  where 
she  had  custom-houses. 

Such  was  the  position  when  Urquhart  visited  Circassia 
in  1834.  His  indignation  was  aroused  at  the  injustice  done 
to  this  small  nation,  while  England,  the  defender  of  the 
oppressed,  looked  on  unmoved.  Lord  Ponsonby  was  entirely 
in  sympathy  with  him.  "  Your  visit  has  been  the  occasion 
of  great  emotions,"  he  wrote  in  September,  1834.  "I 
think  it  is  important  that  the  Government  should  be  put 
in  ample  possession  of  the  poHtical  state  of  the  Circassian 
nations  without  any  delay.  Will  you  draw  up  a  memoir 
on  the  subject  ?  I  will  send  it  in  a  despatch.  It  is  right 
that  you  should  receive  the  credit  due  to  the  exposition  of 
the  facts,  which  have  been  hitherto  only  generally  and 
superficially  known.  ...  If  we  do  not  take  care,  Russia 
will  possess  the  Caucasus  and  all  the  power  which  that 
possession  will  give  her  over  Turkey  and  Persia." 

In   November,    1834,    the    Ambassador   wrote   to    Lord 
Palmerston : 

Lord  Ponsonby  to  Lord  Palmerston  re  Circassia  and 
Mr.  David  Urquhart. 

Therapia, 

Nov.  24,  1834. 

My  dear  Palmerston, 

I  have  a  few  words  to  say  in  reply  to  your  letter  of 
the  10th,  wherein  you  express  some  alarm  respecting 
Urquhart's  conduct  towards  the  Circassians.  It  is  evident 
to  me  that  you  have  not  attended  to  the  facts,  and  I  feel 
confident  you  will  be  quite  at  your  ease  when  you  have 


56  DAVID  URQUHART 

examined  them.  .  .  .  The  Circassians  could  not  be  excited 
to  revolt,  because  they  were  at  the  time,  and  had  long  been, 
in  arms  against  Russia,  and  had  just  defeated  the  Russian 
corps.  There  are  4  or  6  milUons  of  people  determined 
not  to  be  transferred  like  herds  of  swine  to  the  Russians, 
but  resolved  to  assert  their  rights  and  liberty.  I  do  not 
know  the  Englishman  alive  who  would  not,  when  asked, 
have  given  advice  to  such  people  how  to  act  to  render 
legitimate  their  virtuous,  noble,  and  just  resistance  to  a 
yoke  which  Russia  has  no  right  to  impose  upon  them. 

Urquhart  counselled  those  who  sought  counsel  from  him 
to  assert  their  right  to  independence  by  the  declaration 
that  they  were  not  the  subjects  of  Russia,  had  never  been 
so,  and  would  not  be  so.  All  of  which  was  comprised  in 
the  declaration  of  their  national  independence,  and  which, 
if  maintained  de  facto,  would  be  esteemed  by  many  (the 
Americans  to  wit)  as  sufficient  ground  for  our  acknowledg- 
ment, which  in  the  case  of  South  America  was  by  ourselves 
held  to  be  sufficient  ground  for  treating  with  that  country, 
and  which,  in  the  older  case  of  North  America,  authorised 
France  to  acknowledge  that  country.  Urquhart  is  not  a 
diplomatic  agent  of  His  Majesty's  Government. ^  He  has 
no  character  whatever  as  a  public  servant.  He,  I  believe, 
has  been  employed  merely  to  collect  what  may  be  called 
statistical  information.  His  words  nor  his  acts  could  not 
implicate  Her  Majesty's  Government,  and  lastly,  it  is  wholly 
a  secret  to  everybody  that  he  is  employed  at  all  by  the 
British  Government. 

Now,  in  addition  to  the  above,  I  have  to  add  that  I  learned 
from  Capt.  Lyon,  who  accompanied  Mr.  U.,  that  so  far 
from  urging  on  the  Circassians  to  encounter  risks,  he  said 
the  strongest  things  possible  when  replying  to  their  ques- 
tions, to  persuade  them  to  act  with  caution  and  the  most 
careful  attention  to  consequences  dangerous  to  themselves 
from  their  isolated  and  destitute  situation,  and  the  hope- 
lessness and  improbability  of  their  receiving  aid  from  any 
foreign  Power. 

I  have  said  this  much  in  part  from  a  feeling  of  what  is 
just,  in  part  from  a  feeling  generated  in  my  bosom  by  the 
thing  itself. 

I  leave  to  Urquhart  the  proofs  of  the  facts. 

Believe  me, 
(Signed)    Po^soisBY.- 

»  lie  w.ts  «»n  ii  sccriit  coauiicioial  misjiiou  tour. 
3  Foreign  Office  Papers,  266. 


URQUHART  AT  CONSTANTINOPLE  57 

David  Urquhart's  championship  of  Circassia  was,  how- 
ever, by  no  means  favourably  regarded  at  home,  and  the 
Ambassador  received  letters  requiring  the  removal  from 
Constantinople  of  the  "  gentleman  who  had  visited  Cir- 
cassia," because  he  was  "  endangering  the  peace  of  Europe." 
"  What  can  I  say,"  wrote  Lord  Ponsonby  to  Urquhart, 
referring  to  these  letters,  "  but  that  curs  will  bark  and 
rogues  lie  and  fools  believe,  and  time  show  the  cowardice 
of  the  one,  the  falsehood  of  the  other,  and  vary  the  folly 
of  the  last." 

Since  Urquhart  had  a  friend  at  home  in  the  person  of 
WilHam  IV.  as  well  as  one  at  that  time  in  Constantinople 
in  the  person  of  the  Ambassador,  it  was  two  years  before 
his  enemies  could  get  rid  of  the  man  who  was  "  endanger- 
ing the  peace  of  Europe."  They,  however,  succeeded  in 
preventing  any  action  by  England  in  defence  of  Circassia. 
The  coast  of  Circassia  continued  to  be  blockaded  by  Russia 
and  all  trade  with  her  stopped. 

Urquhart  adopted  another  plan.  In  1836,  in  order  to 
assert  the  commercial  right  of  England  to  trade  with 
Circassia,  he  induced  his  friends  the  Bells,  a  firm  of  English 
merchants  with  a  commercial  house  in  Constantinople,  to 
fit  out  a  small  ship  laden  with  salt  for  a  voyage  to  the 
Circassian  coast.  The  vessel  reached  its  destination  and 
was  for  two  days  in  trade  with  the  inhabitants,  when  a 
Russian  warship  entered  the  harbour  and  seized  her  on 
the  pretext  of  a  breach  of  blockade.  Redress  was  de- 
manded by  the  owners  from  the  British  Government,  and 
Lord  Palmerston  entered  into  correspondence  with  the 
Russian  Government,  who,  in  a  high-handed  manner, 
justified  her  action  on  the  ground,  not  of  blockade,  but 
that  the  port  where  the  vessel  lay  was  Russian  territory. 
This  was  absolutely  no  justification,  because  if  it  had 
been  so,  which  it  was  not,  there  was  a  Commercial  Treaty 
between  England  and  Russia,  and  England  had  a  right  to 
trade  with  Russian  ports.  But  Lord  Palmerston,  who  had 
purposely  postponed  the  whole  matter  till  the  Session  of 
Parliament  was  at  an  end,  pretended  to  accept  it;  the 
owners  of  the   Vixen  received  no  compensation  for  their 


58  DAVID  URQUHART 

loss,  and  were  ruined  in  consequence.     William  IV.  was 
now  dead,  and  Urquhart  was  at  the  mercy  of  Palmerston, 
who  made  this  affair  one  of  the  causes  of  complaint  against 
him  when  pressed  hard  for  reasons  for  his  dismissal,  and 
refused  to  allow  him  any  opportunity  to  justify  his  action. 
When  the  question  was  brought  by  Sir  Stratford  Canning 
before  the   House,  Palmerston  refused  to  read  the  letter 
which  Urquhart  had  written  to  him  in  his  defence,  saying 
it  was  a  lengthy  tissue  of  mis-statements  and  misrepresenta- 
tions, which  he  had  not  had  the  time  to  answer,  and  indeed 
had  not  properly  read.^ 

So  ended  Urquhart 's  short  and  stormy  diplomatic  career. 
He  had  flashed  like  a  meteor  through  the  Foreign  Office, 
seriously  disturbing  its  peace,  and  no  doubt  the  officials, 
permanent  or  otherwise,  sighed  with  rehef  when  he  had 
gone. 

Successive  Governments,  however,  discovered  to  their  cost 
that  Urquhart  at  large  was  a  more  disturbing  element  than 
Urquhart  bound  by  the  slight  trammels  of  the  Diplomatic 
Service.     In  July,  1838,  the  Turkish  Treaty  came  out. 

"  This  treaty,"  says  Mr.  Urquhart  in  a  letter  to  The 
Times,  "  was  originally  a  suggestion  of  my  own  to  the 
Turkish  Government.  Adopted  by  it,  it  was  in  the  first 
instance  rejected  by  the  English  Government,  and  after 
a  year  of  truly  laborious  efforts  it  was  finally  admitted. 
The  object  of  the  treaty  was  so  to  lower  the  export  and 
import  tariff  on  Turkish  goods,  particularly  those  in  which 
she  came  into  competition  with  Russia,  as  to  increase 
considerably  Turkey's  trade  and  cheapen  England's  com- 
modities, notably  corn  and  oil  and  raw  silk.  In  the  original 
draft  the  duty  was  three  per  cent,  on  both  exports  and 
imports,  and  transport  duty  and  harbour  duty  were  not 
to  raise  it  above  five  per  cent." 

When  the  treaty  finally  came  out,  however,  though 
Palmerston  maintained  that  it  was  the  same  which  Urquhart 
had  drafted,  a  few  adroit  additions  had  so  altered  it  as  to 
destroy  any  possibility  of  Turkey's  being  able  to  compete 

1  See  Parliamentary  Papers  relating  to  the  seizure  and  confisca- 
tion of  the  Vixen  by  the  Russian  Government,  presented  to  both 
Houses  of  Parliament,  1837. 


URQUHART  AT  CONSTANriNOPLE  59 

with  Russia  in  trade  with  Britain.  British  commerce  was, 
in  fact,  charged  with  an  additional  duty  of  two  per  cent, 
import  and  nine  per  cent,  export,  an  aggregate  duty  nomi- 
nally of  eleven  per  cent.,  which  was  in  reality  augmented 
to  seventeen  per  cent,  above  the  rate  paid  by  Russian 
commerce,  and  Britain  was  excluded  from  equality  of  rights 
with  Russia.^ 

1  Treaty  of  Commerce  with  Turkey,  1838. 
The  following  account  of  the  negotiation  of  the  Treaty  of  Conuuerce 
recently  concluded  with  Turkey  is  given  by  "  a  Levant  Merchant," 
in  a  letter  to  the  editor  of  The  Times,  who  acknowledges  the  respecta- 
bility and  extensive  knowledge  of  the  writer:   In  1834,  Mr.  Urqu- 
hart,  being  then  in  Constantinople,  was  called  upon  by  one  of  the 
ministers  of  the  Sultan  to  give  his  advice  upon  a  question  of  uiternal 
administration  connected    with   the   duties    on  import  and   export 
commerce,  on  which  occasion  he  suggested  to  the  Tiu'kish  Govern- 
ment that  they  should  propose  to  (xreat  Britain  a  new  treaty  of 
commerce,  based  upon  precisely  those  principles  which  are  contained 
in  the  one  lately  signed.     Obstacles  were  at  first  raised,  but  after 
much  discussion,  his  views  prevailed,  and  he  was  requested  to  be 
the  mediator  between  the  two  Governments  for  the  negotiation  of 
the  matter.     He  consulted  various  British  merchants  in  Constan- 
tinople on  the  subject,  in  order  to  hear  their  opinions,  but,  so  far 
from  viewing  it  as  they  now  do,  their  perceptions  were  so  darkened 
by  prejudice'in  favour  of  the  old  system  of  things,  and  fear,  perhaps, 
lest  any  change  might  render  commerce  more  easy  for  new-comers, 
that,   with  hardly  an  exception,   they  condemned  the  project   as 
dangerous,  impossible  and  absurd.      However,  strong  m  his  own 
convictions,  Mr.  Urquhart  came  to  London,  followed  by  a  Turkish 
Ambassador,  who  was  to  support  his  project,  and  whom  I  then  often 
heard  express  his  coincidence  in  Mr.  Urquhart's  views.     Overtures 
were  made  to  the  Foreign  Office,  but  for  a  long  time  total  apathy 
and  apparent  or  pretended  ignorance  of  the  value  of  the  proposition 
closed  the  door  to  all  progress,  until  in  the  autumn  and  winter  of 
1835  the   matter   began  to   be   attended  to,   entirely  through  the 
influence  of  his  late  Majesty,  who  saw  the  true  value  of  Mr.  Urquhart  s 
views  with  regard  to  Turkey,  and  commanded  that  they  should  be 
carefully    discussed.     Mr.    Urquhart    was    appointed    Secretary    of 
Embassy  at  Constantinople;  the  question  of  the  treaty  was  regularly 
brought  before  the  members  of  the  Cabinet,  and  was  the  subject  of 
discussion  for  several  weeks.     Lord  Palmerston  showed  little  dispo- 
sition to  adopt  the  new  and  remarkable  views  of  one  whom  he  con- 
sidered a  junior  and  a  novice  in  diplomacy,  and  he  handed  the  matter 
over  to  the  President  of  the  Board  of  Trade  for  examination.     He 
at  first  declared,  verbally  and  in  writing,  that  the  scheme  was  the 
production  of  a  master  mind,  but  by  and  by  light  broke  in  upon  him, 
as  he  saw  that  if  it  was  carried  out  in  the  manner  that  was  projected, 
his  family  interests  in  the  Baltic  trade  must  be  irretrievably  damaged 
by  Turkey  being  elevated  to  the  position  of  a  competitor  m  the  supply 
of  those  articles  which  Russia  alone  furnishes  to  this  country,  for  I 
well  remember  remarking,  while  in  conversation  with  him  at  that 


60  DAVID  URQUHART 

Urquhart  was  not  slow  to  point  out  the  difference  between 
the  original  treaty  and  this   one   finally  produced.      He 

time,  the  bias  of  Ms  observations  on  this  subject.     Being  among  the 
number   of  those  Levant   merchants  whose   opinions   were   asked, 
and  differing,  as  I  did,  from  others  who  desu'ed    the  continuance 
of  the  monopolies  in  Turkish  commerce,  I  saw  much  of  the  minis- 
terial manoeuvres,  which  tor  a  time  prevailed.     Lord  Palmerston 
and   Mr.   Poulett   Thomson  then   spoke  of  Mr.   Urquhart's  treaty 
and  opinions  as  mere  Utopian  chimeras,  and  the  subordinate  officers, 
w]io  had  become  their  advocates  from  conviction,  received  hints 
to  keep  quiet.     At  length  our  late  noble-minded  Monarch,  having 
heard  of  what  was  going  on,  and  despising  the  paltry  chicanery 
which  he  saw  was  standing  opposed  to  the  advancement  of  the  true 
interests  of  his  people,  took  one  of  those  noble  stands  which  he  knew 
so  properly  how  to  assume  when  duty  called  upon  him,  and  I  dare 
the  Government  scribes  to  deny  (what  I  knew  at  that  time  through 
the  medium  of  more  than  one  inmate  of  the  Palace)  that  the  option 
given  to  Lord  Palmerston  and  Mr.  Poulett  Thomson  was  the  adop- 
tion of  the  present  much-lauded  treaty  or  their  dismissal  from  office, 
and  that  matters  hung  in  the  balance,  those  ministers  being  more 
out  of  than  in  office  for  two  or  three  days  on  this  very  account. 
But  place  and  pension  were  dear  things  to  part  with;  the  affront 
was  pocketed,  revenge  was  set  aside  for  another  day,  and  the  treaty 
was  adopted  in  the  spring  of  1836.     All  things  then  went  on  ap- 
parently very  smoothly,  although  I  must   say  that,  knowing  all  I 
did  of  the  preceding  events,  I  had  many  suspicions  as  to  the  future 
conduct  of  these  men  in  this  matter.     They  soon  after  embarked 
Lord  Ponsonby  in  their  boat,  evidently  by  showing  him  that  if  the 
treaty  (having   been   projected    by  Mr.  Urquhart)  were  concluded 
with  the  Turkish  Government  while  he  was  at  Constantinople,  the 
credit  would  be  given  to  him  (Mr.  Urquhart),  and  j)ro  ianto  not  to 
las  lordsliip.     A  misunderstanding  between  his  lordship  and  Mr. 
Urquhart  (who  had,  as  I  know,  been  for  long  previously  on  terms  of 
the  most  intimate  friendship  with  him)  was  raised  and  fostered. 
Lord  Ponsonby  then  expressed  his  opinion  openly  in  Constantinople 
that  the  draught  of  the  treaty  sent  from  London  was  a  piece  of 
monstrous  absurdity  which  never  could  be  carried  into  effect,  and  he 
accordingly  set  to  work  to  prevent  its  being  even  proposed  to  the 
Turkish  Government.     The  extraordinary  correspondence  published 
in  your  paper  some  months  ago  disclosed  this  and  other  disgraceful 
proceedings,  for  it  is  evident  that  Mr.  Urquliart  was  sent  to  Constan- 
tinople wif  h  tlie  predetermination  of  the  Foreign  Secretary  to  destroy 
his  cliar;i,cter  in  public  lite  by  leading  hini  on  to  encourage  the  voyage 
of  the  Vixen,  which  in  due  season  was  to  be  disavowed,  as  contrary 
to  the  wish  of  his  superiors,  and  by  placing  him  in  apparent  opposition 
to  his  chief.     When  these  disclosures  came  before  the  public,  the 
existence  of  the  treaty  as  a  measure  in  abeyance  became  known; 
its  conclusion  was,  of  course,  looked  for  with  some  expectation  by 
mercantile  men;    but  all  the  influence  with  the  Porte  which  was 
rcjpiisito  for  that  ]»urposo  was  by  that  time  absorbed  by  Russia, 
until  at  last  llcdschid  P;isha  (the  most  able  Turkish   minister  that 
his  filled  the  oftice  of  Reis  Effcndi  for  many  years),  aware  of  the 
deep  importance  of  the  treaty  as  a  measure  of  salvation  for  his 


URQUHART  AT  CONSTANTINOPLE  01 

published  the  two  in  parallel  columns,  and  so  evident  to  the 
commercial  world  was  the  superiority  of  the  original  draft, 
that  he  gained  the  confidence  of  many  important  men  of 
the  mercantile  class  who  had  already  been  attracted  to 
him  by  his  books  and  pamphlets  and  by  the  articles  which 
for  six  months  continuously  he  had  contributed  to  The 
Times,  showing  an  amazing  grasp  of  wide-reaching  com- 
mercial questions  and  a  most  original  way  of  dealing  with 
them.  Through  George  Bell,  of  Vixen  renown,  he  got  a 
hearing  at  Glasgow,  and  was  invited  by  the  merchants  to 
a  large  public  dinner.  His  after-dinner  speech,  which  lasted 
two  hours,  finished  the  work.  "  Henceforth,"  says  one  of 
his  friends,  "  he  may  pursue  as  an  amusement  the  career 
of  gaining  towns,  which  I  presume  to  be  no  less  interesting 
than  instructive  an  occupation,  and  will  come  to  tell  power- 
fully on  our  national  position." 

Glasgow  having  fallen,  the  next  town  to  be  taken  was 
Newcastle.  Hull,  Sheffield,  Manchester,  Leeds  and  Bir- 
mingham followed  in  quick  succession.  Everywhere  Urqu- 
hart  struck  a  new  note — that  international  justice  and 
commercial  prosperity  must  go  together.^ 

"Why,"  said  he,  "are  half  the  markets  which  were 
oj)en  to  British  trade  now  closed  ?  Because  we,  the  cham- 
pion of  the  oppressed,  have  allowed  injustice  to  be  done 
and  cared  naught.  We  had  an  open  market  in  Poland. 
Our  goods  are  now  taxed  sixty  per  cent,  because,  by  our 
supine  and  criminal  disregard  of  the  Law  of  Nations,  we 
have  allowed  her  to  be  crushed  out  of  existence.  We  have 
cut  ourselves  off  from  free  commerce  with  Turkey  by 
sacrificing   her  to   Russia's   aggression.     We   have   almost 

country,  obtaiued  the  consent  of  the  Sultan  to  adopt  it,  through 
despite  of  the  opposition  of  the  interim,  Russian  minister,  Baron 
Ruckman,  and  of  the  apathy  of  Lord  Ponsonby,  who  had  repeatedly 
declared  that  it  would  not  and  could  not  be  adopted  by  the  Turkish 
Government,  and  therefore  left  it  neglected. 

^  The  connection  between  Commerce  and  International  relations 
is  a  familiar  one  in  these  days.  It  was  new  to  the  world  when  Urqu- 
hart  insisted  upon  it. 

In  September,  1853,  he  published  in  the  Morning  Herald  an  article 
on  "  Diplomacy  injurious  to  Trade,"  in  which  he  gave  a  table  showing 
the  approximate  loss  to  England  in  cash  alone,  not  to  speak  of  credit 
and  influence,  by  her  neglect  of  such  treaties. 


62  DAVID  URQUHART 

ruined  our  leather  trade  by  allowing  the  blockade  of  Mexico 
by  France  in  time  of  peace,  an  infraction  of  maritime  law 
which  we,  the  British  Nation,  who  are  the  guardians  of 
the  Freedom  of  the  Seas,  should  have  maintained  at  all 
costs." 

"  The  power  of  England,"  he  said  in  his  Glasgow  speech, 
"  does  not  reside  in  her  bayonets,  and  is  not  shadowed  by 
her  pennants;  it  resides  in  the  confidence  which  men  have 
placed  in  her  firmness  and  integrity.  Her  supremacy  can 
only  be  endangered  by  the  conquests  of  independent  States, 
and  aggression  but  rallies  strength  around  her  as  the  de- 
fender of  endangered  nationalities.  When  she  proclaims 
herself  the  lover  of  peace  at  the  expense  of  honour,  when 
she  asserts  herself  the  friend  of  the  powerful  and  the  ally 
of  the  aggressor,  she  ceases  to  have  a  situation  among 
mankind,  not  because  her  fleets  are  disarmed,  but  because 
her  character  has  sunk. 

'*'My  idea  of  the  power  of  England  has  not  been  derived 
from  the  inspection  of  her  dockyards,  or  of  any  of  her 
barracks,  but  from  the  veneration  with  which  her  name 
is  pronounced  on  the  Atlas,  on  the  glaciers  of  the  Alps, 
on  the  heights  of  Pindus,  and  in  the  vales  of  the  Caucasus, 
on  the  plains  of  Poland,  and  the  steppes  of  Astrakan." 

Such  speeches  as  this  put  Urquhart  at  once  in  opposition 
to  the  policy  of  "  peace  and  retrenchment  "  of  the  Whigs, 
which  was,  as  he  very  truly  said,  making  the  name  of  England 
a  by-word  among  the  nations  who  had  once  revered  her, 
and  justified  the  merchants  in  claiming  him  as  a  Conserva- 
tive. The  idea  of  a  man  who  neither  belonged  nor  wished 
to  belong  to  any  political  party  never  entered  their  minds. 
He  must  enter  Parliament  in  the  Conservative  interest,  said 
his  friends.  Robert  Monteith  of  Carstairs,^  who  was  about 
to  contest  Glasgow,  offered  to  retire  in  his  favour.  Sir 
George  Sinclair,  the  Governor  of  the  Bank  of  England,  Sir 
Francis  Burdett^  and  Mr.  Somerset  Beaumont  would  back 

1  A  son  of  the  Monteith  who  had  welcomed  Sir  Robert  Peel  to 
Glasgow,  ii  member  ot  the  Cambridge  '"  Apostles,"  and  David  Urqu- 
liart's  liielong  friend. 

2  Sir  Francis  Burdett  was  himself  ever  the  sturdiest  of  fighters. 
To  him  "  was  confessedly  due  the  merit  of  making  free  speech  again 
possible  in  England." 

As  a  member  of  the  House  of  Commons  he  indicted  the  Govern- 


URQUHART  AT  CONSTANTINOPLE  63 

him  up  if  he  would  stand  for  Marylebone.  Sheffield  was 
open  to  him.  The  little  coterie  of  devoted  friends,  who 
were  faithful  to  him  amidst  many  trials  and,  in  spite  of 
much  that  would  have  killed  friendship  for  a  lesser  man 
or  in  less  single-minded  people,  were  insistent  that  he 
should  enter  Parliament,  and  placed  time,  money,  health, 
and  interest  at  his  disposal.^ 

ment  on  every  possible  occasion  for  its  encroachments  on  popular 
rights. 

He  took  up  the  scandal  of  the  Coldbath  Fields  Prison,  and  raised 
such  a  storm  about  their  ears  that  the  Prison  Commissioners  suc- 
ceeded in  getting  him  forbidden  to  visit  any  prison  within  the 
United  Kingdom.  In  spite  of  this  inhibition,  however,  his  cause 
finally  triumphed. 

The  most  dramatic  point  in  his  career  was  his  arrest  on  a  question 
of  breach  of  Parliamentary  Privilege.  After  some  days'  hesitation, 
during  which  his  house  was  garrisoned  by  Volunteers,  with  Francis 
Place  at  their  head,  a  forcible  entry  was  made,  and  Sir  Francis  was 
conveyed  to  the  Tower. 

His  release,  which  took  place  after  several  months,  was  only 
prevented  being  made  an  occasion  for  a  great  popular  demonstration 
by  his  slipping  away  unnoticed  by  water,  to  the  great  disgust  of  his 
partisans,  especially  Francis  Place,  who  was  so  angry  that  he  would 
not  speak  to  him  for  years. 

^  I  am  indebted  to  Miss  L.  I.  Guiney  for  the  following  note: 
Notes  and  Queries,  12  S.  vol.  iv.,  January,  1918,  p.  4.  (In  a  paper 
signed  "  M.  Beza,"  on  English  Travellers  among  the  Vlachs.) 

"  In  1838  appeared  The  Spirit  of  The  East,  by  D.  Urquhart.  A 
special  interest  attaches  to  this,  in  his  time,  most  influential  political 
author.  A  Roumanian  statesman  and  writer  of  note,  I.  Ghica, 
for  many  years  representative  at  the  Court  of  St.  James,  knew  him 
well.  In  a  letter  he  portrays  him  as  '  a  young  man  of  short  stature, 
delicate  complexion,  with  pale  face,  long  golden  hair  over  his  back, 
blue  piercing  eyes,'*  and  he  further  speaks  of  Urquhart's  noble 
character,  of  his  ardour  in  espousing  the  great  causes  for  freedom. 
Indeed  his  Spirit  of  the  East  breathes  in  a  large  degree  the  tumul- 
tuous, fiery  atmosphere  of  the  Greek  revolution.  He  deals  in  it  with 
chiefs  like  Catchiaudoni  and  Tchionga,  both  of  the  Vlach  race;  or, 
as  Urquhart  puts  it,  of  'these  hardy  mountaineers,  nowhere  fixed, 
but  ever  to  be  found  where  the  wolves  have  dens  and  eagles  nests ' 
(Vol.  I.,  122)." 

*  Scrisori  ale  lui  I.  Ghica  catre  V.  Alexandri.  Bucuresti,  p.  144. 
No  date  given. 


CHAPTER  III 

THE  EAST  AND  MEDIEVAL  INSTITUTIONS 

"  We  speak  in  unknown  Tongues;  the  years 
Interpret  everything  aright." 

Alice  Meynell:  Builders  of  Euins. 

The  chief  of  a  Highland  clan  combines  in  himself  the  essential 
equalities  of  aristocracy  and  democracy.  He  is  an  aristocrat 
by  jjosition  and  a  democrat  by  virtue  of  his  blood-relation- 
ship with  every  member  of  his  clan. 

Though  David  Urquhart  left  the  Highlands  when  he  was 
eight  years  old  and  straightway,  for  the  rest  of  his  hfe, 
became  a  citizen  of  the  world,  he  was  always  the  chief  of 
his  clan  and  brother  of  all  his  clansmen.  When  he  no 
longer  possessed  a  rood  of  the  lands  of  his  forefathers  there 
was  nothing  he  loved  better  than  to  be  called  in  Highland 
fashion  by  the  name  of  the  lands  that  had  been  theirs; 
and  never  did  he  lose  the  sense  of  kinship  with  the  men  of 
his  clan.  Pointing  to  the  barefoot  boy  who  drove  the 
pigs,  he  would  say  with  pride,  "  He  is  an  Urquhart  too." 

Taken  away  as  a  child  from  amongst  his  own  people,  the 
feeling  of  human  brotherhood,  which  would  have  spent 
itself  on  his  clansmen,  was  widened  to  include  not  only  his 
own  countrymen,  but  all  the  human  race:  "Homo  sum; 
humani  nihil  a  me  ahenum  puto."  All  men  were  his  brethren, 
bound  to  him  by  common  ties  and  duties.  They  owed  to 
him,  and  they  had  a  right  to  expect  from  him,  courtesy 
and  justice.  With  his  countrymen  he  had  still  stronger 
ties.  It  did  not  matter  how  lowly  their  condition,  they 
were  all,  from  the  King  to  the  humblest  peasant,  members 
of  the  State,  and  all  aUke  were  bound  together  by  virtue 
of  their  duties  to  it,  duties  arising  not  from  any  accidental 
cause  such  as  the  franchise,  or  a  position  in  the  Legislature, 

G4 


THE  EAST  AND  MEDIEVAL  INSTITUTIONS      65 

but  just  in  the  same  way  as  the  duties  of  individuals  towards 
one  another  arose  from  their  common  partnership  in  the 
same  society.  For  the  ideal  State  has,  Hke  the  family, 
been  bound  together  by  mutual  courtesy  and  justice.  Class 
distinctions  were  official;  they  were  Uke  rank  in  the  army, 
to  be  respected  and  kept  up,  but  they  made  no  man  another 
man's  real  superior  or  inferior. 

It  was  not,  however,  till  Urquhart  went  to  the  East  that 
the  strength  of  this  aristo-democratic  instinct  of  his  revealed 
itelf  to  his  consciousness.  And,  curiously  enough,  it  was 
the  East,  the  despotic  East,  as  it  seemed  to  most  people, 
which  awoke  it. 

He  went  to  Turkey,  as  he  tells  us,  full  of  prejudice,  and 
what  he  saw  there  did  not  seem,  at  first  sight,  calculated  to 
break  down  that  prejudice.  The  heterogeneous  Turkish 
Empire,  composed  of  many  nations,  many  religions,  with 
its  tyrannical  jannisaries,  its  ruling  and  blood-sucking 
Pashas,  each  under  the  thumb  of  his  attendant  Armenian, 
its  apparently  complicated  and  yet  loose  financial  system, 
which  kept  from  seven  to  nine  hundred  clerks  in  continual 
occupation  in  the  immense  financial  bureaux  at  Con- 
stantinople with  so  little  apparent  result,  seemed  at  first 
sight  an  apotheosis  of  bad  government. 

It  was  some  time  before  he  found  reason  to  modify  his 
judgment. 

"  It  was  after  three  years  of  diligent  statistical  inquiries," 
he  says  in  the  Introduction  to  the  Spirit  of  the  East,  "  that 
I  began  to  perceive  that  there  were  institutions  connected 
with  the  East.  From  the  moment  that  I  did  perceive  the 
existence  of  peculiar,  though  distinct,  principles,  an  intense 
interest  was  awakened  in  my  mind,  and  I  commenced  a 
collection  of  financial  details  with  a  view  to  understanding 
the  rules  upon  which  they  were  based.  Three  more  years 
were  spent  in  this  laborious  uncertainty,  and  I  collected 
and  noted  down  the  administration  of  two  hundred  and 
fifty  towns  and  villages  before  I  was  struck  with  the  common 
principles  that  guided  their  administration."^ 

During  those  three  years  was  laid  the  foundation  of  all 
Urquhart 's  knowledge  and  love  of  the  East.     "  They  were," 

^  Spirit  of  the  East;  Introductory  chapter. 

5 


66  DAVID  URQUHART 

he  says,  "  dumb  years,"  because  "  when  in  the  considera- 
tion of  nations  you  come  to  ideas  which  cannot  be  accu- 
rately expressed  by  the  symbols  of  your  own  language, 
you  must  revert  to  first  principles,  you  must  come  back 
to  the  consideration  of  human  nature." 

This  was  exactly  what  the  ordinary  Eastern  traveller 
could  not  do,  or  at  any  rate  did  not  choose  to  do,  and  there- 
fore he  never  learned  the  secret  of  Eastern  administration. 

"  The  ordinary  EngUshman,"  Urquhart  says,  "  goes  to 
the  East  convinced  that  he  is  a  professor  of  political  economy, 
who  has  possession  of  the  science  of  government,  and  that 
in  all  respects  he  is  a  free  man  of  an  understanding  mind. 
He  discovers  that  the  Turk  considers  a  public  debt  a  bad 
thing.  '  The  ignoramus  !'  he  exclaims.  That  the  Turk 
regards  this  debt  as  contrary  to  rehgion.  '  Ah  !  the  fanatic  !' 
He  discovers  again  that  the  Turk  has  a  repugnance  to  the 
idea  of  an  Assembly  which  makes  laws.  '  Ah  !  the  slave  !' 
That  the  Turk  despises  a  representative  chamber.  '  Ah  ! 
the  tool  of  despotism  !'  and  so  on  to  the  end  of  the  chapter. 
But  if  the  Turk  were  to  reveal  to  him  his  own  ideas  of  the 
duties  of  a  sovereign  and  the  obhgation  of  dethroning  him 
when  he  does  not  fulfil  them,  or  the  necessity  for  every 
civil  and  military  subordinate  to  be  sure  of  the  legality  of 
an  order  before  executing  it,  the  European  would  lose  him- 
self in  conjectures  and  astonishment,  and  would  exclaim, 
'  These  Turks  are  revolutionists  and  communists.'  He 
would  be  a  hundred  leagues  from  perceiving  that  science 
and  hberty,  as  he  understands  them,  are  only  perversions 
arising  from  the  impotence  of  past  ages  to  resist  the  en- 
croachments of  authority,  which  has  succeeded  in  sub- 
jugating the  nations  of  Europe  and  putting  them  in  handcuffs 
administrative,  financial  and  intellectual."^ 

The  first,  and  perhaps  the  most  important,  thing  that 
Urquhart  discovered  was  that  Eastern  nations  did  not 
consist  of  rulers  and  ruled:  one  part  of  the  nation  did  not 
continually  sit  to  legislate  for  the  other  part.  The  founda- 
tions of  government  and  legislation  rested  on  inviolate  and 
inviolable  custom,  by  which  all  were  equally  bound.  The 
Sultan  himself  could  not  retain  his  throne  did  he  attempt 

1  Diplomatic  Eeview,  vol.  xxiv.,  p.  178:  "Islam  and  the 
Constitutional  System." 


THE  EAST  AND  MEDIEVAL  INSTITUTIONS     07 

to  override  them.  Moreover,  the  Government  took  no 
account  of  details.  The  people  were  not  bound  under 
penalties  to  obey  rules  and  regulations  quite  independent 
of  moral  law. 

The  taxes  were  imposed,  not  on  individuals,  but  on  the 
municipia,  for  these  were  the  units  of  the  Eastern  State. 
The  municipalities  were  responsible  for  apportioning  the 
taxes  and  for  taxing  themselves  for  their  own  necessary 
expenses.  They  maintained  order  within  their  own  Umits. 
They  provided  schools  and  schoolmasters.  They  organised 
their  own  trade,  and  thus  industry  and  commerce  were 
free.  Indirect  taxation  was  a  thing  unknown.  In  the 
East,  said  Urquhart,  might  still  be  seen  feudaUsm  in  its 
earliest  and  uncorrupt  stage.  For  in  the  East  the  military 
fief  did  not,  as  in  Europe,  involve  possession  of  the  soil, 
but  only  a  right  to  one-tenth  of  its  fruits,  and  that  right 
carried  with  it  the  duty  of  protecting  the  cultivators,  who 
had  "  an  indefeasible  right  of  property  in  the  soil,  as  un- 
controllably their  own,  as  that  of  the  blade  of  grass  to  the 
earth  from  which  it  springs."  Such  a  right  was  of  itself 
enough  to  raise  the  peasant  proprietors  of  the  East  far 
above  the  unlanded  and  disinherited  peasant  of  England, 
who  had  nothing  he  could  call  his  own  but  his  labour,  and 
that  he  must  sell,  not  at  his  own  price,  but  at  that  of  its 
purchaser. 

Each  municipahty  was  a  family,  of  which  all  the  members 
were  bound  together  by  ties  of  mutual  interdependence. 
If  there  was  outside  tyranny,  as  too  often  there  was,  under 
a  corrupted^  Mussulman  Government,  it  was  borne,  and 
often  resisted,  by  the  whole  community.  Like  the  members 
of  a  Highland  clan,  the  members  of  the  municipality  had 
each  his  own  place  and  his  own  rank,  and  each  his  own 
human  value  equal  to  that  of  any  Prince  or  Pasha.  There- 
fore the  active  principles  of  Eastern  municipal  life  were 
necessarily  those  vital  principles  of  justice  and  courtesy 
which  thus  leavened  the  whole  of  Eastern  society.  All 
ranks,  whether  in  the  community  or  the  family,  associated 

^  Its  corniption  was  largely  due  to  Western  interference  with 
Eastern  institutions. 


68  DAVID  URQUHART 

without  familiarity  or  condescension,  but  with  mutual 
respect  and  courtesy,  for  human  dignity  was  by  no  means 
affected  by  the  accident  of  rank  or  position.  Custom 
regulated  manners  as  well  as  law,  and  by  reason  of  custom 
all  classes  could  associate  with  an  ease  and  dignity  which 
is  almost  unknown  in  Western  life,  except  in  the  remoter 
parts  of  Ireland  and  Scotland.  The  master  could  use 
affectionate  expressions  towards  his  servant  without  evoking 
either  presumption  or  suspicion,  and  servants,  children  and 
friends  could,  and  did,  perform  the  lowliest  offices  for  their 
masters,  parents  or  friends  without  any  real  or  fancied 
loss  of  dignity.  The  class  hatred  which  was  springing  up 
to  devastate  Europe  was  unknown  in  the  East  which 
Urquhart  discovered  in  his  early  manhood. 

It  was  an  East  of  wide  extent,  for  he  was  not  content 
with  knowing  the  Turkey  of  Constantinople,  which  his 
official  duties  necessitated  his  knowing;  he  had  lived  in 
the  villages  of  Servia,  he  had  travelled  more  than  once 
through  the  Balkan  PrincipaUties  and  the  parts  of  Greece 
still  under  the  Turkish  rule.  He  had  lived  as  a  Mussulman 
in  the  villages  of  Asiatic  Turkey  and  in  the  tents  of  Arab 
sheikhs  in  the  deserts.  He  visited  Mount  Lebanon,  and  first 
of  any  Englishman  he  penetrated  into  the  mountain  fast- 
nesses of  the  Caucasus,  where  the  Circassians  were  still 
fighting  stubbornly  to  protect  their  country  from  the  paw 
of  the  Russian  bear.  Everywhere  he  found  the  same 
characteristic  features:  freedom  of  trade,  agriculture  and 
craft  going  on  side  by  side  in  the  villages,  strong  inde- 
pendent municipalities  which  contained  within  themselves 
all  the  essentials  of  a  republic,  and,  however  great  might 
be  the  poverty,  no  pauperism. 

In  1838  Urquhart  returned  to  England.  It  would  not 
have  been  surprising  had  he  forgotten  all  else  in  the  con- 
sideration of  his  own  private  misfortunes.  His  diplomatic 
career  had  been  unjustly  and  suddenly  wrecked;  he  found 
himself  involved  in  huge  expenses  for  an  undertaking  for 
which  he  had  had  every  reason^  to  believe  the  Government 
considered  itself  responsible,  and  he  was  struggling  under 
1  The  publication  of  the  PortfoliQ. 


THE  EAST  AND  MEDIAEVAL  INSTITUTIONS     69 

one  of  those  attacks  of  ill-health  to  which  his  sensitive 
temperament  and  abnormally  active  brain  rendered  him 
constantly  liable. 

But  the  ills  of  his  country  very  soon  absorbed  him  to  the 
entire  exclusion  of  his  own.  He  had  come  back  to  a  state 
of  society  the  very  antipodes  of  that  which  he  had  been 
studying  for  the  past  six  years.  He  had  come  back  from 
Eastern  despotism  to  "  a  free  and  enlightened  country,"  to 
find  it,  in  his  own  words,  "  a  nation  of  slaves."  The  over- 
whelming majority  of  the  peoj)le  had  not  as  much  as  a 
foot  of  the  ground  of  England  they  could  call  their  own, 
even  the  right  to  feed  cattle  on  the  common  lands  they 
had  lost. 

They  were  entirely  without  a  voice  in  the  government 
of  the  country.  The  introduction  of  machinery  had  thrown 
thousands  out  of  work,  and  had  reduced  the  old  handloom 
weavers  of  many  once  prosperous  districts  to  absolute 
starvation.  The  old  Poor  Law,  by  giving  relief  in  aid  of 
wages,  had  enabled  the  farmer  to  pay  to  his  labourers  con- 
siderably less  than  a  living  wage,  and  the  new  Poor  Law, 
by  stopping  this  relief  while  trade  was  still  disorganised 
and  wages  at  starvation  rate,  had  roused  the  people  to  a 
state  of  frenzy.  The  Reform  Bill,  from  which  the  people 
had  anticipated  such  great  results,  had,  they  declared,  only 
made  matters  worse  by  putting  the  power  into  the  hands 
of  the  Whigs,  who  proved  themselves  less  sympathetic 
to  working-class  desires  and  aims  than  the  Tories  had  been. 
The  Whigs  it  was  who  brought  in  the  hated  Poor  Law; 
who  threw  out  the  Factory  Bill,  which  was  intended  greatly 
to  diminish,  if  not  abolish,  child-labour;  who  steadily  refused 
any  further  extension  of  the  franchise.  Poverty  and  dis- 
tress were  everywhere  rife;  with  a  population  of  seventeen 
millions,  eight  million  pounds  were  spent  yearly  in  poor 
relief.  The  people  were  in  a  state  of  smouldering  discontent 
and  class-hatred,  which  might  break  out  at  any  time  into 
open  flame.  The  moment  that  the  prohibition  to  combine 
was  removed  from  the  working  men,  and  even  before  that, 
large  organisations  were  founded  all  over  the  country. 
The  Political  Unions,  the  Trade  Unions,  and  the  "  Asso- 


70  DAVID  URQUHART 

ciations  of  the  Useful  Classes,"  were  all  animated  by  hatred 
more  or  less  intense  of  the  classes  above  them,  and  all 
determined,  some  by  moral  force,  some  by  violence,  to 
make  their  voices  heard  in  the  government  of  the  country. 

Urquhart  had  not  at  first  any  intention  of  interfering 
in  the  Labour  troubles  of  his  time.  He  had  come  home  to 
settle  scores  with  Palmerston  over  the  Turkish  Commercial 
Treaty,  and  his  own  recall  from  the  Turkish  Embassy,  and 
to  try  to  bring  before  the  country  generally  the  importance 
of  right  and  just  relations  with  other  countries.  Probably 
the  deplorable  condition,  both  moral  and  physical,  of  the 
working  classes  had  not  especially  struck  him,  but  in  his 
journeys  from  one  large  commercial  centre  to  another, 
where  he  spoke  to  large  meetings  at  the  invitation  of  mer- 
chants and  manufacturers,  he  could  not  fail  to  be  impressed 
by  the  contrast  between  the  general  prosperity  of  the 
country  and  the  poverty  of  the  poor.  It  was  not,  however, 
till  he  had  been  invited  to  stand  in  the  Tory  interest  for 
St.  Marylebone,  that  Urquhart  came  in  contact  with  the 
movement  which  is  now  known  as  Chartism. 

He  never  was  a  Tory;  in  fact,  he  never  belonged  to  any 
party  except  that  of  his  country.  But  as  Disraeli  indicated 
in  his  speech  against  Attwood's  Petition  in  July,  1839,  the 
Tory  party  had  shown  more  practical  sympathy  than  the 
Whigs  for  the  working  classes.  It  was  but  natural.  The 
old  landed  proprietors  belonged  to  the  soil;  so  did  the 
peasant,  though  his  right  in  it  had  been  lost.  There  was 
still  a  bond  which  connected  together  the  landed  proprietor 
and  the  peasant,  a  remnant  of  the  feudal  relations  of  pro- 
tector and  protected.  But  in  the  middle-class  parvenus, 
who  had  come  to  power  with  the  Reform  Bill  of  1832,  this 
bond  was  absent,  and  the  working  class  bitterly  realised 
that  their  "  shopocrat  "  masters,  as  they  contemptuously 
called  them,  were  worse  tyrants  than  the  aristocrats  had 
been.  Therefore,  if  Urquhart  could  be  said  to  have  had 
anything  in  common  with  any  party  it  was  with  the  Tories. 
He  probably  recognised  this  when  he  consented  to  stand  for 
Marylebone.  But  the  candidature  did  not  go  farther  than  a 
public  meeting.    He  was  very  soon  engrossed  in  other  work. 


THE  EAST  AND  MEDIEVAL  INSTITUTIONS     71 

At  that  meeting  three  leading  Chartists  were  present. 
They  had  been  attracted  by  the  soundness  and  originahty 
of  his  views  upon  commerce,  and  had  come  to  this  meeting 
partly  to  hear  what  he  had  to  say  and  partly  to  heckle. 
But  when  it  was  over  they  begged  him  to  attend  a  private 
meeting  of  their  own.  He  went;  he  met  them  and  their 
friends,  not  once  but  many  times,  and  his  lifelong  and 
affectionate  connection  with  the  working  classes  began. 

It  must  not  be  forgotten  that  the  Chartists  were  by  no 
means  a  united  body  with  unanimous  aims.  As  a  matter 
of  fact  they  had  sprung  from  at  least  three  distinct  sources : 
the  National  Political  Union,  which  had  agitated  for  the 
Reform  Bill  and  had  practically  died  down  after  it  was 
passed;  the  Trades  Unions,  closely  connected  with  the 
European  Societies  of  Trades  Unions,  which  organised  the 
riots  of  1834;  and  the  "Association  for  the  Moral,  Social, 
and  Political  Improvement  of  the  Industrious  Classes." 
This  last  was  the  most  important  of  all  as  regards  real 
working-class  advance,  for  it  was  an  attempt  on  the  part 
of  the  operatives  to  be  their  own  organisers  and  leaders. 
The  political  unions  had  been  very  largely  supported  and 
led  by  merchants,  manufacturers,  and  shopkeepers.  The 
working  men's  association,  organised  at  the  beginning  by 
an  American,  Doctor  Black,  and  his  friend  Detroisier,  who 
took  in  hand  and  attempted  to  carry  through  the  repeal 
of  the  stamp  duty  on  newspapers,  began  in  a  back  room 
at  Francis  Place's  shop  in  Charing  Cross  Road. 

It  took  Dr.  Black  some  time  to  overcome  the  suspicions 
of  the  working  men,  who,  since  the  collapse  of  the  Political 
Unions,  were  thoroughly  mistrustful  of  the  middle  classes, 
but  he  overcame  this  mistrust  by  devoting  evening  after 
evening  to  thek'  instruction  in  "  common  school  subjects." 
Detroisier  and  Henry  Hetherington,^  with  some  of  Black's 
evening-class  pupils,  founded  the  first  Working  Men's 
Association.  The  Associations  spread  with  very  great 
rapidity,  and  their  rules  forbade  any  but  working  men  to 
be  in  any  official  position  in  them.     They  had,  however, 

1  The  cliampion  of  the  unstamped  Press,  and  editor  of  The  Poor 
Mail's  Guardian. 


72  DAVID  URQUHART  ' 

many  sympathisers  among  the  middle  classes,  and  the 
London  meetings  were  attended  by  Members  of  Parhament, 
such  as  Sir  William  Molesworth,  Fielden  and  Roebuck. 
Their  aims  were  perhaps  at  first  more  educational  than 
political.  They  established  libraries,  opened  reading-rooms, 
and  brought  out  elaborate  plans  for  national  education, 
which  was  not  to  be  in  the  hands  of  the  Government,  but 
of  local  authorities. 

But  they  soon  became  aware  that  to  carry  out  any  success- 
ful schemes  they  must  have  more  political  power.  Lord 
John  Russell's  speech  in  1837,  in  which  he  expressed  him- 
self against  all  that  the  working  classes  had  been  working 
for  since  the  passing  of  the  Reform  Bill — ^Triennial  Parlia- 
ments, the  Extension  of  the  Franchise  and  Voting  by 
Ballot — finally  roused  them  to  action.  The  London  Asso- 
ciation appointed  six  members  of  its  committee  in  con- 
junction with  six  sympathetic  Members  of  Parliament  to 
draw  up  a  Bill  embodying  the  rights  which  the  people 
demanded,  the  People's  Charter  which  it  now  was  for  the 
first  time  called.  To  further  their  aims  the  Associations 
combined  with  the  Birmingham  Political  Union,  which  had 
revived  under  the  leadership  of  Mr.  Thomas  Attwood,  and 
the  Trades  Unions  to  call  a  monster  Convention  in  London, 
to  which  delegates  were  to  be  sent  from  all  towns  and 
villages  in  the  United  Kingdom.  Addresses  were  sent  to 
all  the  Radical  Associations,  missionaries  were  sent  out, 
subscriptions  or  "  rents  "  were  collected,  monster  meetings 
were  held.  In  some  places  more  than  thirty  thousand 
people  assembled,  and  in  spite  of  the  growing  fear  of  the 
Government,  and  the  vexatious,  and  in  many  cases  unjust, 
methods  adopted  to  repress  it,  the  movement  steadily 
grew  in  numbers  and  determination.  So  powerful  did  it 
become  that  the  Chartists  might  have  carried  all  before  them 
had  it  not  been  that  their  house  was  divided  against  itself. 
One  party,  the  moral  force  party,  desired  to  use  only  con- 
stitutional means  to  gain  their  ends;  Law,  Peace  and  Order 
was  their  motto.  The  other,  the  physical  force  party,  declared 
that  nothing  could  be  done  with  peaceful  methods  unless 
behind  them  they  had  the  means  and  the  will  to  adopt  force. 


THE  EAST  AND  MEDIEVAL  INSTITUTIONS     73 

Such  was  the  position  of  the  Chartists  when  Mr.  Urquhart 
first  came  in  contact  with  them  and  gained  the  friendship 
of  many  of  their  prominent  men,  at  the  same  time  that  he 
showed  himself  to  be  an  enemy  of  the  movement. 

Urquhart 's  attitude  towards  the  working  man  was  entirely 
unique.  There  was  in  it  not  a  touch  of  familiarity  or  of 
condescension;  he  met  them  on  the  terms  of  the  most 
complete  equality,  while  at  the  same  time  he  maintained 
his  own  position  and  expected  them  to  maintain  theirs. 
He  had  no  sympathy  with  the  philanthropist  or  the 
economist,  both  of  whom  apparently  believed  that  between 
the  classes  favoured  by  God  with  all  that  made  life  desir- 
able and  those  deprived  of  them,  obviously  by  the  same 
Agency,  there  was  a  great  gulf  fixed. 

The  philanthropist  tried  to  mend  their  condition  by 
some  slight  efforts  to  supply  here  and  there  the  most  obvious 
and  crying  needs  of  the  poor,  but  more  especially  by  preach- 
ing contentment  with  their  lot  and  submission  to  their 
betters. 

The  economist  regarded  the  state  of  things  as  an  inevit- 
able result  of  fixed  laws.  The  poverty  of  the  poor,  said 
he,  is  the  result  of  the  laws  of  demand  and  supply;  we  are 
over-peopled,  let  us  limit  our  population.  The  dislocation 
of  trade  arises  from  the  want  of  division  of  labour.  Economic 
laws  cannot  be  altered;  they  must  be  studied  and  we  must 
live  according  to  them. 

But  David  Urquhart  could  not  deal  with  the  problem 
either  as  a  philanthropist  or  as  an  economist.  He  must  deal 
with  it  as  a  man,  or  not  at  all.  And  it  seemed  to  him  that 
in  the  East  he  had  learnt  the  secret  of  so  doing. 

But  was  it  possible  that  Eastern  methods  could  be 
appUed  to  Western  peoples  ?  The  ordinary  observer 
would  have  said  "No";  Urquhart  said  "Yes";  for  he 
maintained  that  the  methods  of  government  which  the 
East  had  retained  were,  broadly  speaking,  the  methods  of 
the  whole  of  Europe  in  the  Middle  Ages.^     In  mediaeval 

1  The  Guild  Socialists  are  Urquhart's  direct  descendants  in  plead- 
ing for  a  return  to  Mediaevalism.  See  H.  J.  Penty,  Guilds  and  the 
Social  Crisis. 


74  DAVID  URQUHART 

Europe  moral  law  was  the  recognised  basis  of  government, 
as  it  was  still  in  the  East.  The  effect  of  that  recognition 
was  justice  in  public  relations  and  courtesy  in  private  life; 
for  justice  and  courtesy  are  but  different  aspects  of  the 
recognition  of  law.  A  man  who  gives,  in  his  private  rela- 
tions, to  children  and  servants,  to  inferiors  and  superiors, 
that  courtesy  which  is  their  due,  will  not  withhold,  in  his 
public  dealings,  the  justice  which  is  the  foundation  of  public 
life.  And  a  nation  whose  social  life  is  built  on  courtesy 
will  not  fail  in  its  public  relations  with  other  nations.  That 
virtue  in  the  Turk  which  prevents  his  drawing  his  sword 
against  an  enemy  until  he  is  convinced  that  the  cause  is 
just  is  the  same  virtue  which  makes  him  courteous  in  all 
his  relationships.  So  in  the  Middle  Ages  all  relationships, 
from  the  relation  of  nation  to  nation  to  the  relation  of  a 
servant  to  his  master,  rested  on  the  same  broad  principles  of 
moral  law  and  unwritten  custom.  All  men  knew  that  law; 
it  did  not  follow  that  they  obeyed  it,  but  no  one  questioned 
it.  And  over  all  there  was  an  authority  capable  of  visiting 
its  infringement  with  penalties.  Within  the  wide  bounds 
of  that  law  individuals  were  free;  they  were  not  subject, 
as  under  modern  government,  to  rules  and  restrictions 
having  no  moral  force  but  the  will  of  the  ruling  majorities. 

Taxation  moreover  was  open  and  direct.  The  Public 
Revenue  was  not  drawn  from  taxes  on  the  necessaries  of 
life.  Communities  not  only  apportioned  but  assessed  their 
own  taxes ;  and  they  were  only  asked  to  pay  extraordinary 
taxes.  Ordinary  taxes  were  paid  out  of  Crown  lands  and 
by  the  Feudal  Lord.  It  was  his  demesne,  not  the  poor 
man's  few  acres,  which  paid  the  expenses  of  government. 

As  in  the  East,  moreover,  so  in  the  Middle  Ages  pauperism 
was  a  thing  unknown,  for  hospitaUty  was  a  rehgious  duty. 
No  man  might  be  without  food  and  lodging  within  the 
bounds  of  a  Christian  parish.  Of  all  the  Church  property 
in  England  one-third  was  devoted  to  the  care  of  the  acci- 
dental poor  in  the  different  parishes.^ 

But  the   most   important  point,  and  the  one  in  which 

1  For  Feudalism  and  Pauperism  see  Urquliart's  pamphlet, 
Wealth  and  Want. 


THE  EAST  AND  MEDIEVAL  INSTITUTIONS      75 

modern  England  diverged  most  widely,  not  only  from  the 
England  of  the  Middle  Ages,  but  from  the  whole  ancient 
world,  was  the  practice  of  domestic  industry.  Before  the 
days  of  Morris  and  Ruskin,  when  the  whole  of  England  was 
rejoicing  in  the  wonderful  invention  of  power-looms,  and  only 
the  working  men  talked  of  the  factory  system  as  "  damnable," 
Urquhart  declared  that  the  new  industrial  system  was  but 
the  beginning  of  the  end  of  the  greatness  of  the  nation. 

"  The  loss  of  the  spinning-wheel  was  like  the  loss  of  the 
shoe,  after  that  the  horse  went,  and  after  that — there  was 
no  longer  a  State  but  only  a  jumble.  .  .  . 

"  Before  the  subdivision  of  labour  was  known  as  a  process 
of  science,  the  people  of  England,  then  called  '  merry,' 
manufactured  at  home,  in  the  intervals  of  field  labour,  the 
clothing  requisite  for  their  families  out  of  the  produce  of 
their  land  and  their  flocks.  England  was  consequently  a 
self -subsisting  country,  and  neither  depended  herself  for 
existence  on  the  accidents  of  war,  and  a  bolstered-up  credit 
at  home,  nor  infected  remote  regions  with  her  flimsy  stuff 
and  vulgar  patterns.  The  millions  did  not  live  in  trembling 
dependence  from  hand  to  mouth,  nor  were  there  cotton 
lords  to  revel  in  coarse  and  ungainly  luxury.  This  change 
was  brought  by  science;  men  could  produce  more  when 
their  industry  was  confined  to  a  pin's  point,  and  the  great 
idol.  Cheapness,  was  set  up;  distant  lands  adored,  but  the 
people  at  home  were  crushed. 

"  Civilisation  draws  everything  to  the  towns  and  makes 
each  family  dependent  on  the  factory;  to  that  den  is  not 
transferred  the  sanctification  of  the  household  by  its  easy 
tasks  and  varied  occupations,  which  has  now  departed. 
In  addition  to  the  rest  you  divide  the  people  into  two  hostile 
camps  of  clownish  boors  and  emasculated  dwarfs.  Good 
heavens  !  a  nation  divided  into  agricultural  and  commercial 
interests  calling  herself  sane  !  nay,  styling  herself  en- 
lightened and  civilised,  not  only  in  spite  of  but  in  conse- 
quence of  this  monstrous  and  unnatural  division. 

"  A  family  engaged  in  field  work  will  have  sufficient  idle 
time  upon  its  hands  to  spin,  weave,  make  up  the  stuffs 
wherever  the  practice  of  those  civilising  arts  is  pursued, 
at  no  cost  at  all.^ 

^  "  Twenty  pounds  of  wool,  converted  unobtrusively  into  the 
yearly  clothing  of  a  labouring  family^  makes  no  show,  but  bring  it 
to  market,  send  it  to  the  factory,  bring  it  thence  to  the  broker,  send  it 


76  DAVID  URQUHART 

"  The  cost,  or  gain,  is  healthful  industry.  It  is  a  matter 
of  habit,  not  of  reasoning;  where  the  habit  of  preparing 
these  articles  exists  there  is  no  reasoning  about  it — neither 
is  there  where  it  is  the  custom  to  go  to  the  slop  shop. 

"  A  people  in  the  first  condition  would  be  horrified  at 
the  idea  of  expending  money  for  what  they  could  do  them- 
selves. A  people  in  the  second  would  be  confounded  at 
the  proposal  to  spin  their  own  yarn  and  knit  their  stockings, 
and  conceive  it  to  be  a  furious  encroachment  on  the  gin 
shop  for  the  man  and  the  slop  shop  for  the  woman. 

"...  England,  the  wealthiest  of  lands  and  the  first  in 
the  scale  of  industry,  is  the  country  in  which,  above  all 
others,  domestic  industry  has  disappeared.  It  is  also  the 
home  of  pauperism  and  panics.  Other  countries  in  various 
degrees  approach  to  her  in  the  subdivision  of  labour  and 
in  an  equal  degree  in  the  extinction  of  domestic  industry.  In 
like  proportion  are  they  afflicted  with  pauperism  and  panic. 

"  Pauperism  and  panic  are  unknown  to-day  in  the  East. 
They  were  unknown  throughout  the  whole  of  the  ancient 
world. 

"  Domestic  industry  is  practised  in  the  East.  It  was 
practised  in  ancient  times  in  every  portion  of  the  globe. 
The  opposite  plan  was  the  discovery  of  England;  it  has 
been,  in  her  own  estimation,  her  greatness.  It  has  given 
to  her  colossal  riches  as  the  gain  of  a  few,  and  unparalleled 
misery  as  the  gain  of  the  rest. 

"  Could  the  hard  breathings  and  choking  thoughts  of 
a  second  of  time  in  these  realms  be  condensed  into  one 
utterance,  it  would  overcome  the  concentrated  groan  of 
the  misery  endured  throughout  the  remaining  eight  hundred 
millions  of  the  human  race  throughout  the  course  of  the 
present  and  many  preqeding  generations."^ 

In  all  these  ways,  Urquhart  maintained,  in  respect  for 
the  moral  law,  self-government,  freedom  of  trade  and  the 

to  the  dealer,  and  it  will  represent  commercial  operations  and  apparent 
capital  to  the  amount  of  twenty  times  its  value,  and  costs  to  the 
labourer  when  returned  to  him  twice  as  much  as  it  would  cost  him 
in  dyeing,  spinning,  and  weaving.  The  working  class  is  thus  amerced 
to  support  a  wretched  factory  population,  a  parasitical  shop-keeping 
class  and  a  fictitious  monetary  and  financial  system.  The  landlord, 
for  his  share,  pays  five  shillings  per  acre  Poor  Rates.  All  this  is  the 
result  not  of  cheapness  but  of  delusion. 

"  The  people  of  England  were  better  clothed  and  fed  when  there 
was  no  commerce  and  when  there  were  no  factories." 

*  Free  Press,  December  1,  1855:  "Domestic  Manufactures." 


THE  EAST  AND  MEDIEVAL  INSTITUTIONS     77 

love  for  and  skill  in  craft,  did  the  East  show  what  the  Middle 
Ages  had  been  and  what  Modern  Europe  had  lost.  And 
with  this  loss,  nay,  because  of  this  loss,  she  had  suffered 
a  far  greater  loss,  the  loss  of  idealism  and  the  loss  of  in- 
dividual character.  Underneath  the  hfe  of  the  Middle 
Ages  lay  the  basic  principle  of  a  strong  religious  faith. 
Above  all  earthly  rule  there  stood,  its  model  and  its  monitor, 
the  spiritual  rule  of  the  Papacy,  the  Grand  Justiciary  of 
Europe.  Individual  popes  might  be  ambitious,  criminal 
and  self-seeking.  The  ideal  of  the  spiritual  State  to  which 
all  temporal  sovereignty  must  bow  was  never  attained, 
but  who  that  looks  on  the  world  now  must  not  see  that 
the  world  was  the  better  for  such  an  ideal  ?  It  affected 
not  only  the  policy  of  statesmen,  but  the  lives  of  indi- 
viduals. Private  character  was  stronger,  more  self-reUant, 
better  developed.  Men  did  not  prostitute  their  judgment 
to  public  opinion,  or  get  any  idea  they  might  possess  from 
a  newspaper  article.  IdeaUsm,  obedience,  respect  for 
authority,  all  the  things  that  a  vain  and  shallow  pretence 
at  independence  professes  to  scorn,  developed,  instead  of 
stultifying,  character,  stimulated  thought,  and  safeguarded 
freedom.  In  the  Middle  Ages  men  were  really  free. 
"  Liberty  is  ancient;  it  is  despotism  that  is  modern." 
It  was,  said  Urquhart,  this  idealism,  this  strength  of 
character,  this  power  of  being  right,  that  the  working  men 
must  strive  to  gain.  Nothing  else  that  they  had  lost  could 
they  regain,  no  advance  could  the  nation  make  tiU  they 
had  this.  They  must  divest  themselves  of  the  spirit  of  the 
age  with  all  its  corruption,  injustice  and  want  of  thought, 
they  must  divest  themselves  of  themselves,  for  they  partook 
of  the  spirit  of  the  age.  Each  man  must  go  back  to  the 
simple  self,  to  the  man  that  lay  beneath  all  the  corruption 
which  his  age  had  fastened  on  him,  to  the  elemental  virtue 
and  simpUcity  which  makes  the  true  man.  Then,  and 
then  only,  might  they  hope  for  a  real  change  in  the  life 
and  social  condition  of  the  Nations. 

Of  course  the  ideal  was,  hke  all  great  ideals,  impossible 
of  attainment.  The  attempt  failed,  but  it  was  a  failure 
greater  than  many  a  success. 


PART   II 

HOW  HE  FOUGHT  FOR  JUSTICE  IN  ENGLAND 

"  And  the  Mills  of  Satan  were  separated  into  a  moony  Space 
Among  the  rocks  of  Albion's  Temples,  and  Satan's  Druid  Sons 
Offer  the  human  Victims  throughout  all  the  Earth." 

Blake:  Milton,  folio  9,  lines  6-8. 

"  And  did  those  feet  in  ancient  time 

Walk  upon  England's  mountains  green  % 
And  was  the  holy  Lamb  of  God 

On  England's  pleasant  pastures  seen  ? 

'*  And  did  the  Countenance  Divine 
Shine  forth  upon  our  clouded  hiUs  ? 
And  was  Jerusalem  builded  here 
Among  these  dark  Satanic  Mills  ? 

"  Bring  me  my  bow  of  burning  gold  ! 
Bring  me  my  arrows  of  desire  ! 
Bring  me  my  spear  !  0  clouds,  unfold  ! 
Bring  me  my  chariot  of  fire  ! 

"  I  wUl  not  cease  from  mental  fight, 

Nor  shall  my  sword  sleep  in  my  hand. 
Till  we  have  built  Jerusalem 

In  England's  green  and  pleasant  land." 

Blake:  Milton,  folio  2. 


CHAPTER  IV 

CHARTISM 

_ "  Woe  unto  him  that  buildeth  his  house  by  uurighteousuess  aud 
his  chambers  by  wrong." — Jeremiah  xxii.  13. 

Urquhart  came  to  the  working  men  of  England  in  1839 
with  what  seemed  to  them  a  new  Social  Gospel. 

It  was  indeed  that  by  which  their  forefathers  had  shaped 
their  lives  in  the  Middle  Ages;  but  it  was  the  East  which 
had  revealed  it  to  him. 

It  was  the  East,  moreover,  which  had  taught  him  the 
rottenness  of  a  civilisation  based  on  injustice  and  a  so-called 
economic  system. 

During  his  journeys  from  town  to  town  in  his  connection 
with  the  mercantile  class,  the  wrongs  of  the  Enghsh 
operative  classes  were  opened  to  his  keen  sight.  It 
was  apparently  in  1838,  during  a  visit  to  Glasgow,  that 
he  first  came  into  personal  contact  with  them,  when 
he  and  his  feUow-workers  succeeded  in  getting  together 
small  bodies  of  operatives  as  well  as  merchants  to 
discuss  the  commercial  relations  of  England  to  other 
countries. 

In  some  places  operatives  and  merchants  sat  at  the  same 
table  and  discussed  the  same  subjects.  At  Newcastle  his 
friend  Wilham  Cargill,  a  member  of  one  of  the  prominent 
merchant  famihes  of  the  town,  carrying  on  an  important 
trade  with  the  East,  greatly  aided  him,  and  succeeded  in 
gaining  the  confidence  of  many  working  men.  George 
Fyler,  a  young  barrister  with  commercial  connections, 
seconded  his  efforts  in  London,  while  Robert  Monteith, 
David  Ross  of  Bladensburg,  and  Charles  Attwood,  did 
the  same  thing  in  Glasgow,  Birmingham,  and  Lancashire. 
Urquhart  himself,  as  time  went  on,  became  gradually  more 

81  6 


82  DAVID  URQUHART 

and  more  convinced  that  any  hope  for  the  future  of  England 
lay  with  the  working  man,  oppressed,  poverty-stricken, 
disenfranchised  as  he  was. 

"  I  speak  to  the  operatives  because  my  interest  is  in 
working  men,"  he  said  in  a  sjDeech  at  Stafford.  "  I  care 
not  for  the  gentlemen:  tliey  have  means,  power,  possessions, 
wealth,  and  all  those  things  which  would  secure  existence, 
if  not  honour,  in  any  country,  if  not  in  this;  but  in  address- 
ing the  operatives  I  speak  to  those  whom  fate  has  fixed  on 
the  soil  upon  which  we  live,  who  can  have  no  interest 
except  in  its  prosperity.  The  higher  orders  may  be  corrupt 
and  the  nation  sound.  But  in  addressing  the  operatives  I 
speak  to  those  who,  if  their  heart  is  cold  to  their  country 
and  their  ears  closed  to  reason,  leave  to  their  State  no  hoj)e 
whatever  of  regeneration  or  restoration." 

We  who  live  in  a  time  when  the  working  man  is  coming, 
if  he  has  not  already  come,  to  his  own,  can  scarcely  realise 
the  political  insight  and  the  grasp  of  future  possibiUties 
which  such  a  point  of  view  indicated  in  a  man,  young, 
without  prestige  or  influence,  who  could  stand  up  and  speak 
so  to  a  society  which  regarded  the  working  man,  struggling 
for  justice,  as  some  sort  of  wild  beast;  at  a  time  when  a 
judge  on  the  bench  could,  without  condemnation,  stigmatise 
the  "  lower  orders  "  as  "  wholly  vicious";  at  a  time  when 
the  police  harried  them  with  spies  and  informers,  and  the 
Government,  whether  Whig  or  Tory,  treated  their  most 
legitimate  criticisms  on  its  methods  of  procedure  as  sedition 
and  conspiracy. 

Urquhart's  relation  to  the  working  classes  was  intensely 
human;  it  was  entirely  unpolitical,  and  it  culminated 
during  the  Chartist  rising  in  a  situation  of  extreme  interest. 

It  was  in  1839  that  he  first  came  into  contact  with 
the  Chartist  leaders;  that  this  man  on  fire  with  the  love 
of  justice  and  hatred  of  oppression,  the  stern  upholder 
of  moral  law  as  the  highest  thing  he  knew,  came  into  con- 
tact with  men  in  whose  souls  the  iron  of  injustice  was 
rankling,  many  of  whom  were  smarting  under  recent  and 
unjust  punishment,  and  were  ready  to  cast  aside  all  law, 
moral  and  civil,  in  order  to  attain  to  the  liberty  they  felt 


CHARTISM  83 

was  their  due.  An  electric  spark  was  lit,  apparently  oppo- 
site elements  became  united,  and  David  Urquhart  was 
joined  to  the  operatives  by  a  bond  that  was  to  last  to  the 
end  of  a  long  life. 

The  Scottish  aristocrat,  the  polished  cosmopolitan,  drew 
to  his  side  and  linked  his  career  finally  and  entirely,  not 
with  the  respectable  mechanics  and  artisans  of  the  twentieth 
century,  but  with  the  starved,  despised,  and,  as  his  soi- 
disarit  betters  called  him,  the  "  degraded  "  factory  hand, 
with  the  potters,  the  weavers,  and  the  labourers  of  early 
Victorian  days.  Not  as  a  superior  did  he  join  forces  with 
them,  but  as  an  equal,  a  fellow-citizen,  a  fellow-English- 
man, a  man  with  common  duties  and  common  rights.  He 
had  his  position  in  society,  they  had  theirs.  He  had  some- 
thing to  teach  them,  but  when  they  had  learnt  it,  their 
duty,  no  less  than  his,  was  to  go  and  put  the  lessons  into 
practice,  to  serve  their  country  and  to  teach  others  what 
they  had  learnt.  The  relationship  between  Urquhart  and 
the  operatives  never  degenerated  into  familiarity  on  their 
side  or  to  patronage  and  philanthropy  on  his.  On  both 
sides  it  was  always  respectful,  simple,  and  sincere.  To  his 
working-men  friends  he  meted  out  the  same  treatment  as 
he  did  to  his  social  equals.  Neither  escaped  the  fiery 
furnace  of  indignation  and  scorn  which  followed  any  dis- 
play of  insincerity  or  stupidity.  But  if  there  was  any 
distinction  it  was  in  favour  of  the  working  man.  It  was 
against  smug,  wealthy,  middle-class  self-satisfaction,  or 
political  self-seeking,  that  his  most  fiery  darts  were  hurled. 
His  devoted  adherents  were  often  reduced  to  despair, 
because  he  aUenated  by  fierce  denunciations  wealthy  and 
influential  people,  whom  it  seemed  to  them  all-important 
to  gain,  while  he  would  spend  patient  hours  trying  to 
convince  one  or  two  working  men  or  instructing  a  young 
girl.  "  My  best  converts,  apart  from  working  men,"  he 
was  wont  to  say,  "  are  men  of  genius  and  young  girls." 

In  1839,  when  Urquhart  first  came  into  contact  with  the 
Chartists  as  Chartists,  they  were  in  a  very  dangerous  mood. 
The  monster  Petition  with  2,000,000  signatures,  their  last 
hope  of  obtaining  their  demands  by  peaceful  means,  had 


84  DAVID  URQUHART 

been  contemptuously  set  aside  by  the  Government.  Those 
of  them  who  had  always  maintained  that  in  the  end  they 
must  resort  to  physical  force  to  obtain  their  ends  were  in 
the  ascendancy,  and  there  is  no  doubt  that  the  preparations 
for  a  universal  armed  rising  were  wide  and  well-organised. 
Mr.  Urquhart's  conviction  that  foreign  agents  had  a  large 
share  in  these  preparations  is  not  unsupported  by  inde- 
pendent evidence. 

The  Enghsh  Trades  Unions  had  always  been  in  very  close 
connection  with  the  foreign  Unions.^  There  was  a  Central 
Democratic  Association  composed  of  Poles,  ItaUans,  Ger- 
mans, and  French,  which  was  strong  enough  to  provide  that 
Haynau,  the  notoriously  cruel  Austrian  General,  when  he 
paid  a  visit  to  Barclay  and  Perkins's  Brewery  should  be 
set  upon,  pursued  and  so  frightened,  that  he  was  forced 
to  take  refuge  in  a  dust-bin. 

Information  of  great  and  extensive  revolutionary  pre- 
parations reached  the  Government  by  side  winds.  The 
poUce  heard  from  their  spies  and  informers  of  orders 
for  as  many  as  10,000  powder  cans  being  given  to  jobbing 
tin-workers  in  Bethnal  Green, ^  and  an  informer  writes  that 
it  has  come  to  his  knowledge  that  many  thousand  pikes 
and  weapons  are  being  made,  also  triangular  forked  instru- 
ments, for  placing  across  the  streets  to  injure  the  feet  of 
cavahy  horses. 

In  1839  an  informer  in  a  secret  report^  writes  from 
Manchester : 

"  My  Lord,  the  Radicals  in  Manchester  muster  thirty-six 
divisions  of  one  hundred  men  each,  subdivided  into  sections 
of  twenty  each  under  staunch  leaders,  who  bind  themselves 
by  certain  rules  and  regulations  to  stand  by  one  another 
even  unto  death.  They  are  ruled  by  a  Council  of  Twelve 
in  each  district.  Ashton-under-Lyne,  including  Dunker- 
field,  has  fifty-two  divisions,  Stalybridge  seventeen  divisions, 

1  When  the  type-founders  employed  by  Messrs.  Caster  in  Chiswell 
Street,  E.G.,  struck  work  on  account  of  a  reduction  of  20  per  cent, 
in  their  wages,  word  was  immediately  sent  round  to  the  Trades  Unions 
of  France  and  Belgium,  with  the  result  that  Messrs.  Caster,  who  sent 
for  men  to  both  these  countries,  could  only  get  nine  French  workmen, 
and  that  at  30s.  a  week  higher  wages  than  they  had  been  paying. 

2  Home  Oflicc  Papers,  64,  15,  1834.  3  Ibid.,  64,  15. 


CHARTIS:\I  85 

all  sub-divided  as  above.  The  whole  of  these  men  have 
arms  of  some  sort.  My  Lord,  I  must  say  that  I  find  the 
working  classes  almost  to  a  man  determined  Republicans 
and  extremely  discontented.  .  .  .  Thousands  of  them  will 
join  the  Union  men  when  a  break-out  takes  place.  There 
have  been  plans  prepared  to  make  the  Government  yield. 
The  one  was  for  all  the  Unions  and  others  that  would  join 
them  to  march  up  to  London  and  by  force  of  numbers  to 
compel  the  Government  to  grant  the  Charter.  In  the 
Union  last  night^  I  asked  how  we  could  subsist  on  the 
journey;  their  answer  was,  'There  is  plenty  of  money  in 
the  banks  of  which  we  can  take  possession.'  This  morning 
a  letter  was  read  from  Richardson,  one  of  the  ^lanchester 
deputies,  now  in  London,  advising  all  the  Unions  to  hold 
themselves  in  readiness  for  simultaneous  meetings  all  over 
the  country  on  the  same  day,  and  ordering  the  INlanchester 
flag  that  bears  the  inscription  '  Annual  ParUaments  '  to 
be  altered  to  '  The  People's  Parliament.'  He  seems  to  have 
no  hopes  of  the  present  Government  granting  their  requests." 

It  was  Urquhart's  idea  that  underneath  the  ordinary 
Chartist  body  there  was  a  secret  organisation  governed  by 
foreign  agents.  None  of  the  rank  and  file  of  the  Chartists 
knew  of  the  whole  conspiracy,  which  was  so  thorough  and 
well-laid  as  to  be  a  great  menace  to  the  Government.  Of 
this  he  became  convinced  at  his  first  meeting  with  the 
Chartist  leaders  at  Marylebone  in  1839,  and  in  his  owti 
account  of  the  event  written  thirty-three  years  afterwards 
he  maintained  it  with  absolute  certainty. 

Urquhart's  connection  with  the  Chartist  movement  dates 
from  his  nomination  as  Tory  candidate  for  the  Borough  of 
Marylebone  in  September,  1839,  to  which,  at  the  urgent 
entreaty  of  his  friends,  he  had  consented.  In  order  to 
prepare  the  way  a  meeting  was  called  by  his  friends  in 
the  Mechanics'  Institute,  New  Road,  "  to  take  into  con- 
sideration the  Commercial,  Domestic,  and  Foreign  Affairs 
of  the  Nation."  It  was  attended  by  a  large  body  of 
Chartists,  headed  by  William  Cardo,  the  delegate  for 
Marylebone  at  the  Convention,  who  acted  as  spokesman. 

1  It  was  a  usual  plan  for  spies  to  join  the  Trades  Unions.  Some- 
times they  rose  to  eminent  positions,  where  they  were  extremely 
useful  to  the  Government. 


86  DAVID  URQUHART 

George  Fyler,  a  London  barrister  and  disciple  of  Urquhart's, 
who  was  present  at  the  meeting,  was  already  acquainted 
with  the  Chartist  Westrup,^  who  had  approached  him  on 
the  subject  of  the  formation  of  a  London  Chamber  of  Com- 
merce. Having  got  into  conversation  with  Cardo  through 
Westrup  at  the  meeting,  Fyler  determined  to  pursue  his 
acquaintance. 

The  Chartists  on  their  side  had  been  struck  by  the  views 
of  Mr.  Urquhart  and  his  friends  which  they  had  heard,  for 
the  first  time,  fairly  stated. 

"  It  appears,"  writes  Fyler,  "  that  my  speech  created  a 
sensation  among  the  Chartists,  that  you  and  your  views 
have  been  the  subject  of  discussion  with  the  Convention 
at  Marylebone.  The  result  of  this  was  my  sending  Westrup, 
who  has  become  most  valuable,  back  to  Cardo,  ready 
primed.  He  saw  him  and  had  a  conversational  discussion 
with  the  Convention  about  you,  which  has  terminated 
satisfactorily,  and  Cardo  is  to  be  with  me  to-morrow  night. 
I  had  Westrup  to  breakfast  with  me  this  morning,  and  he 
was  to  have  brought  a  Mr.  O'Brien,  an  Irish  barrister  of 
good  family,  a  Chartist  of  great  influence,  and  a  man, 
Westrup  says,  of  great  talent.  O'Brien,  however,  could 
not  come:  I  expect  him  to-night,  about  ten." 

Fyler  met  Bronterre  O'Brien,  that  fiery  advocate  of 
physical  force,  as  well  as  Cardo.  But  he  did  not  succeed 
in  converting  them. 

"  Mr.  Cardo  still  did  not  see  in  what  I  said  the  means  of 
solving  these  internal  difficulties  which  he  felt,  or  of  raising 
the  poor  and  industrious  man  from  the  miserable  state  of 
dependence  and  oppression  in  which  he  stood.  Mr.  O'Brien 
had  not  quite  made  up  his  mind  that  we  should  not  be  all 
the  better  without  foreign  trade.  ...  I  left  him  with  no 
other  impression  than  appears  in  the  willing  expression 
that  he  should  be  very  happy  to  co-operate  or  give  effect 
to  the  labours  of  such  gentlemen  as  Mr.  Urquhart.  .  .  . 
But  Mr.  Urquhart,  at  my  request,  came  up  to  London, 
and  the  scene  was  changed.  Mr.  Westrup  and  Mr.  Cardo 
called  on  me;  I  took  them  to  Colonel  Pringle  Taylor's, 
where  Mr.  Urquhart  was,  and,  to  use  INIr.  Cardo 's  expressive 

^  Hovell,  in   The  Chadist  Movement,  calls  him  Westrapp,  but  he 
signs  himself  in  his  letters  Westrop  or  Westrup  indiscriminately. 


CHARTISM  87 

words  the  next  day,  '  in  less  than  five  minutes  Mr.  Urquhart 
had  solved  all  these  difficulties  without  my  having  felt    it 
necessary  to   state  them.'  ...     In  the  evening   O'Brien 
came   to    the    Colonial    Society    with    Messrs.    Cardo    and 
Westrup.     It  was  not  in  language  to  convey  what  passed 
on  that  occasion,  the  extensive  range  of  subjects  which, 
in  the  two  hours  it  lasted,  Mr.  Urquhart  grasped,  laying 
bare  the  character,  the  injurious  and  deleterious  effects  of 
our  boasted  institutions,  and,  in  a  few  simple  words,  not 
alone  leading  the  hearer  to  understand  the  bearings  of  the 
subject  but  to  the  reception  of  similar  convictions  to   his 
own.     He  pointed  out  the  source  of  the  evils  under  which 
the  nations  groaned,  and  that  the  only  remedy  is  in  return- 
ing to  the  simple  institutions  of  our  forefathers,  and  he 
showed  the  effect  of  indirect  taxation  on  the  character  of 
the  people,  the  influence  of  local  government  in  the  de- 
velopment of  powers  of  the  human  mind,  its  effect  on  the 
internal  state  of  the  country,  rendering  a  j^olice,  poor  laws, 
custom-houses,   and  all  those   other  adjuncts   of  what  is 
called  a  civihsed  people  unnecessary.  .  .  .     On  Thursday 
morning  they  came  again.     Lord  Dudley  Stuart  and  Mr. 
Carey  were  likewise  present.     It  is  impossible  to  go  through 
these  extraordinary  conversations,  or,  rather,  addresses.     I 
can  only  convey  their  effect  to  the  mind  of  another,  by 
stating  the  deep  silence  and  continued  attention  and  in- 
terest with  which  Mr.  Urquhart  was  listened  to,  an  occa- 
sional remark  made  being  rather  to  elucidate  a  further 
explanation  than  the  statement  of  any  objection." 

At  the  public  meeting  held  soon  after,  Mr.  Cardo  "  with 
great  simplicity,  intelligence,  and  power  "  communicated  to 
his  audience  that  he  had  at  length  found  a  means  of  arriving 
at  truth,  that  he  perceived  a  certainty  of  accomplishing  the 
great  object  for  which  they  had  been  struggling,  not  by  the 
triumph  of  one  party,  but  by  the  sinking  of  all  those  dis- 
sensions and  party  differences  that  existed  among  them. 

Cardo  and  Westrup  were  won,  and  with  them  the  delegate 
from  Bolton,  Warden,  a  man  unlike  Cardo,  opposed  to 
physical  force  for  gaining  the  ends  of  labour,  intelligent, 
gentle,  and  conscientious.  These  and  other  of  their  friends 
at  last  felt  impelled  to  lay  before  Urquhart,  this  new  friend 
who  had  inspired  them  with  such  confidence,  the  danger 
to  the  country  which  was  involved  in  the  Chartist  plot. 


88  DAVID  URQUHART 

"  The  Chartists,"  they  said,  "  disappointed  in  the  hopes 
they  had  entertained  of  realising  their  projects  peaceably, 
were  now,  to  the  amount  of  nearly  two  millions  throughout 
the  land,  aroused  and  ready  to  accomplish  their  objects 
by  national  convulsion;  all  their  numerous  armies  in  the 
North,  in  the  West,  as  well  as  in  the  South,  had  intended 
some  early  day  before  the  first  of  January  to  put  themselves 
in  motion.  They  had  already  shells  and  rockets  which 
were  explosive,  spikes  for  the  feet  of  cavalry  horses,  and 
other  ammunitions  of  war  prepared  in  secret  in  Bir- 
mingham." 

Urquhart  and  his  friends  took  action  on  this  information ; 
they  not  only  laid  the  whole  before  Lord  Normanby,  but 
without  trusting  to  anything  the  Government  (which  was, 
or  affected  to  be,  sceptical  of  the  extent  of  the  Chartist 
conspiracy)  might  or  might  not  do,  they  went  themselves 
from  town  to  town,  seeing  the  leaders,  and  if  they  did  not 
win  them  over  to  their  side,  at  least  making  them  afraid 
to  act,  from  the  knowledge  that  their  plans  were  known. 

Mr.  Urquhart,  writing  in  1854  to  a  working  men's  asso- 
ciation in  Manchester,  gives  his  own  account  of  these 
strange  happenings. 

"  Having  accepted  the  proposal  to  stand  for  Marylebone, 
and  several  meetings  having  been  held,  the  Chartists  came 
in  a  body  to  interrupt  them,  having  somehow  been  informed 
that  I  was  a  dangerous  person,  as  representing  trade, 
diplomacy  and  Toryism.  I  was  not  present  at  the  meeting, 
but  after  it  one  of  them,  a  friend  of  mine,  said  to  the  leader 
of  the  Chartists :  '  I  see  you  are  an  able  man.  Would  it  not 
suit  those  quaUties  better  to  try  and  understand  Mr.  Urquhart 
first  and  reserve  your  denunciations  for  afterwards  ? ' 

"  Accordingly  he  (the  Chartist)  came  to  me  and  asked 
what  I  considered  were  the  evils  of  England  and  what  I 
proposed  as  a  remedy. 

"  But  when  I  had  begun  to  tell  him  he  rose  and  said: 
'  I  cannot  listen  to  this  alone.  Will  you  allow  me  to  bring 
some  of  my  friends  to-morrow  night  V 

"  They  came,  and  returned  again  and  again. 

"  The  Charter  was  never  mentioned,  nor  the  suffrage, 
nor  any  meanness  of  that  kind. 

"  I  think  it  was  the  third  time,  at  between  two  and  three 
in  the  morning,  they  said  they  could  not  lay  their  heads 


CHARTISM  89 

on  their  pillows  till  they  had  revealed  to  me  the  fate  pre- 
pared for  the  doomed  city  sunk  in  slumber.  They  had  not 
gone  far  in  their  narrative  before  we  came  upon  a  Russian^ 
agent  as  mover  and  director  of  the  whole  plan.  Not  an 
instant  was  lost.  With  the  aid  of  these  men  and  others 
which  they  brought,  and  collecting  all  my  available  friends, 
amounting  to  about  twenty  or  thirty  individuals  in  all, 
we  proceeded  to  deal  with  the  confederacy,  now  broken  in 
London,  throughout  the  provinces. 

"  I  visited  every  district,  saw  every  leader. 

"  There  was  no  change  in  my  language  because  of  what 
I  had  learnt.  The  Charter  was  never  mentioned  from 
beginning  to  end. 

"  It  was  by  showing  another  and  a  better  way  that  doubts 
came  over  them  as  to  the  judiciousness  of  continuing  in 
that  in  which  they  were  engaged,  and  men  in  doubt  do  not 
risk  property,  liberty  and  life. 

"  Frost  was  missed  by  half  an  hour;  otherwise  this  danger 
would  have  been  averted  without  leaving  a  trace  behind 
of  its  existence." 

The  campaign  against  Chartism  started  with  great  hopes. 

The  working  men  would  be  won,  and  with  them  the 
country. 

Urquhart  was  deeply  impressed  with  the  intelligence  and 
the  sincerity  of  the  operatives. 

"  There  are  in  this  body,"  he  said,  "  immense  resources; 
they  are  individually  more  simple,  more  honest,  and  more 
thoughtful  than  the  upper  orders;  there  is  a  consciousness 
among  them  of  community  of  interests,  and  there  is  sym- 
pathy for  each  other;  they  consider  themselves  as  a  class 
and  not  as  a  party;  their  minds  are  set  to  work  to  inquire 
and  to  investigate;  and  therefore  it  is  that  my  hopes  for 
the  salvation  of  their  country  are  centred  on  them." 

The  line  he  took  in  his  first  dealings  with  the  Chartists  was 

1  Benyouski.  (See  NoHhern  Liberator,  November  and  December, 
1840.)  He  had  been  an  officer  in  the  Polish  Lancers.  He  was  a 
Russian  Pole  whom  Urquhart  believed  to  have  been  in  the  employ 
of  the  Russian  Secret  Service. 

There  is  little  doubt  but  that  he  was  one  of  the  principal  leaders 
of  the  Chartist  Movement  and  his  presence  was  always  followed  by 
revolution.  Urquhart's  life  was  twice  attempted  during  his  crusade 
against  Chartism;  once  he  had  to  escape  from  a  house  over  the  roofs 
of  the  neighbouring  houses. 


90  DAVID  URQUHART 

that  to  gain  the  six  points  of  the  Charter  would  do  them 
no  good  so  long  as  the  whole  nation  persisted  in  its  down- 
ward course. 

Class  injustice  and  class  distress  were  but  symptoms. 

The  real  disease  lay  deeper.  It  was  to  the  unjust  and 
foolish  Foreign  Policy  of  England  and  the  disloyalty  of  her 
Governments  to  her  ancient  Constitution  and  to  the  principles 
of  justice,  both  in  international  and  national  affairs,  that 
the  present  distress  of  the  operatives  was  due. 

The  nation  had  gone  astray.  It  was  declining  more  and 
more  from  the  old  paths  of  justice  and  honour.  This  was 
the  fault  of  the  whole  people,  not  of  a  few;  it  was  the  fault 
of  each  individual.  It  had  come  about  gradually,  and  its 
primary  cause  was  the  loss  of  municipal  government,  which 
had  produced  loss  of  the  sense  of  responsibiUty.  Men  had 
come  to  think  that  affairs  of  state  were  no  concern  of  theirs. 
They  had  committed  the  Government  to  representatives, 
to  whom  they  had  also  committed  their  thinking.  Instead 
of  thought-out  opinions  they  had  adopted  party  catch- 
words, and  so  had  got  into  a  vicious  circle,  wherein  loose 
thought  had  debased  speech,  and  this  in  turn  had  corrupted 
thought,  until  men  neither  knew  what  they  thought  nor  how 
they  ought  to  act.     They  had  lost  the  faculty  of  judgment. 

"  If  you,  the  nation,  judge  soundly,"  he  said  to  a  little  body 
of  Chartists  who  came  to  ask  his  counsel,  "  it  would  not 
matter  what  the  form  of  government  might  be.  .  .  .  It 
is  the  knowledge  and  simplicity  of  the  men  which  constitute 
the  value  of  the  accidental  institutions  under  which  they 
live.  Monarchy,  Despotism,  Democracy  and  OUgarchy  have 
all  been  base  and  baneful  as  they  have  all  been  great 
and  beneficial.  The  form  of  government  has  no  more  to 
do  with  your  conclusions  than  the  fashion  of  your  clothes. 
The  fashion  of  your  clothes,  as  the  form  of  your  govern- 
ment, may  react  upon  you,  but  again  it  is  but  the  reaction 
of  your  own  thoughts  upon  yourselves.  .  .  .  Government 
can  do  no  people  any  good.  Government  is  always  a  load 
to  bear,  but  it  is  necessary  as  a  curb  to  place  upon  the  evil 
passions  of  men,  whether  those  passions  are  exhibited  in 
individual  acts  of  injustice,  or  in  international  assaults, 
which  have  to  be  resisted  abroad.  These  are  the  legitimate 
objects  of  government,  and  all  else  is  bad.  ..." 


CHARTISM  91 

Such  was  the  foundation  of  Urquhart's  teaching,  and  so 
he  drew  the  nobler  spirits  among  the  Chartists  to  himself. 
Those  who  were  frankly  revolutionary,  or  wished  to  be  the 
leaders  of  a  great  party,  Uke  O'Brien^  and  Feargus  O'Connor, 
and  those  to  whom  the  Charter  was  an  end  in  itself,  beyond 
which  they  could  not  see,  held  aloof  or  were  openly  hostile. 
Many  of  them  seriously  thought  that  David  Urquhart  was 
a  Tory,  that  the  whole  movement  had  been  "  hatched  in 
the  Carlton  Club,"  and  that  the  "  Foreign  Pohcy  cry  was  a 
red  herring  drawn  across  the  trail  to  draw  off  the  attention 
of  the  operatives  from  the  Charter."  The  Government 
took  another  view.     Lord  Normanby  considered  Mr.  Urqu- 

1  Bronterre  O'Brien,  however,  in  after  years  found  that  he  had 
many  points  of  agreement  with  Urquhart. 

On  February  12,  1856,  in  a  speech  which  he  delivered  on  the 
Crimean  War  at  the  John  Street  Institute,  Fitzroy  Square,  he  said: 

"Let  it  not  be  pretended,  then,  that  Turkey  needed  our  assistance, 
or  that  of  France.  If  left  to  her  own  resources  the  whole  Turkish 
population  wordd  have  risen  en  masse,  and  no  power  that  Russia  could 
have  broiight  into  the  field  could  have  availed  against  such  a  force 
on  Turkish  soil. 

'■  Mr.  Urquhart  was  quite  right  when  he  said,  it  was  not.  Turkey's 
weakness  but  Turkey's  strength  that  the  Allies  really  feared;  and 
that,  instead  of  going  to  save  her,  they  sent  their  fleets  and  armies 
to  prevent  her  from  saving  herself. 

"  Every  incident  of  the  War,  every  measure  and  fact  of  our  policy 
towards  Turkey,  goes  to  prove  the  truth  of  Mr.  Urquhart's  assevera- 
tions. 

"  France  and  England  have  done  more  to  destroy  the  independence 
of  Turkey  in  one  year,  by  theu-  pretended  alliance,  than  Russia 
could  have  done  by  fifty  years  of  war. 

"We  have,  by  our  Machiavellian  policy,  destroyed  her  three 
principal  armies;  we  have  caused  one  part  of  her  fleet  to  be  destroyed 
at  Synope,  and  the  rest  to  be  either  used  as  transports  or  left  to 
rot  in  their  harbours.  We  have  caused  3,000  of  her  seamen  to 
perish  for  lack  of  pay  and  necessaries.  We  left  the  brave  garrison 
of  Kars  to  capitulate  for  want  of  bread  and  powder,  after  all  their 
heroic  sacrifices,  not  sending  them  a  single  regiment,  when  the  Allies 
could  have  spared  at  least  twenty  from  the  Crimea  (where  they  had 
nothing  to  do),  not  sending  them  a  single  ration  of  bread,  or  a  parah, 
when  we  had  immense  stores  accumulated  within  a  few  days'  sail  of 
them,  and  while  it  was  known  to  us  that  nearly  three  years'  arrears 
of  pay  were  due  to  that  brave  garrison. 

"  To  talk  of  helping  Turkey  under  such  cii'cumstances  was  only 
a  cruel  mockery. 

"  We  have  only  taken  the  place  of  Russia,  in  order  to  do  to  Turkey 
what  we  charged  Nicholas  with  having  designed  to  do. 

"  We  have  left  her  literally  without  a  fleet,  also  without  an  army, 
except  the  miserable  remnant  of  some  30,000.  .  .  .  This  is  what  is 
called  helping  Turkey  !" 


92  DAVID  URQUHART 

hart  "  nothing  but  a  Chartist  with  the  Foreign  Policy 
added." 

But  the  anger  of  the  Chartists  was  strongly  directed 
towards  their  old  leaders  who  had  joined  the  "  Foreign 
Policy  men,"  when  some  of  them,  like  Cardo,  Lowery, 
Warden,  Westrup,  Thomason,  and  Richards,  went  about 
the  various  towns  and  districts  where  Chartists  had  lost 
hold,  trying,  not  to  destroy  Chartism,  but  to  show  the 
Chartists  a  more  excellent  way.  Many  of  them  were  quite 
ready  for  such  showing;  for  the  better  sort  were  full  of 
fear  as  to  the  way  in  which  things  were  going.  The  members 
of  the  Convention  seem  to  have  felt  that  plans  were  being 
laid  and  plots  hatched  by  small  coteries  of  desperate  men  who 
had  no  patience  to  wait  for  the  slow  workings  of  petitions 
which  were  disregarded  and  appeals  which  were  ignored. 

None  of  the  converted  Chartists  showed  more  enthusiasm, 
ability,  and  power  of  absorbing  and  reproducing  the  new 
ideas  than  William  Cardo.  Two  months  after  his  first 
meeting  with  David  Urquhart  we  find  him  conducting  a 
public  meeting  at  Birmingham,  of  which  this  is  his  account : 

"  In  my  first  address  to  the  people  of  Birmingham  after 
showing  them  the  injury  done  to  the  labour  and  capital 
of  this  country  by  the  expansion  of  the  Russian  Empire 
and  the  almost  universal  exercise  of  Russian  influence,  all 
directed  to  the  destruction  of  British  commerce,  likewise 
the  blockades  carried  out  by  France,  through  which  one 
Button  Manufacturer  told  me  he  had  lost  a  market  that 
he  used  to  supply  annually  with  hundreds  of  thousands  gross 
of  buttons,  the  men  that  made  them  he  was  compelled  to 
discharge,  and  they  were  reduced  to  all  the  sufferings  and 
privations  consequent  on  want  of  employment.  They  have 
since  been  compelled  to  find  employment  in  other  trades  that 
were  already  overstocked  with  workmen.  Also  the  large 
import  duties  allowed  to  be  put  on  British  goods,  having 
the  effect  of  entirely  destroying  the  Trade,  or  otherwise  com- 
pelHng  the  manufacturer  to  reduce  considerably  the  wages  of 
his  workmen  to  enable  the  merchants  to  pay  them.  I  have 
given  you  this  outline  to  show  how  I  connect  the  interests 
of  industry  with  the  Foreign  Policy  of  the  Country."-^ 

*  The  letters  and  speeches  of  the  working  men  have  been  given 
without  alteration  of  any  kind,  either  of  diction,  grammar,  or  spelling. 


CHARTISM  93 

At  a  Chartist  meeting  which  took  place  when  he  was 
in  Birmingham,  Cardo  opposed  to  the  suggestion  of  an  anti- 
Corn  Law  agitation  the  Russo-Turkish  policy  of  the  Govern- 
ment, pointing  out  how  it  increased  the  price  of  corn,  and 
took  the  opportunity  to  speak  of  Eastern  municipal  in- 
stitutions. He  seems  to  have  made  some  impression,  for 
he  was  invited  to  attend  a  Committee  and  argue  out  the 
matter  with  the  supporters  of  the  anti-Corn  Law  agitators. 

"  I  have  determined,"  he  said,  "  that  no  individual  with 
whom  I  am  in  contact,  whether  in  public  or  in  private, 
shall  remain  ignorant  of  the  designs  of  Russia  and  the 
treason  of  Lord  Palmerston,  not  forgetting  those  institu- 
tions that  Mr.  Urquhart  has  made  known  to  the  world, 
and  the  existence  of  which  I  trust  I  shall  live  to  see  in 
this  country,  for  it  is  then  I  look  forward  to  the  eman- 
cipation of  that  class  to  which  I  belong  and  the  general 
happiness  and  prosperity  of  society." 

In  April,  1840,  Cardo  was  the  principal  speaker  at  a 
public  meeting  at  Newcastle,  the  immediate  and  very 
important  result  of  which  was  the  re-embodiment  of  the 
Northern  Political  Union, ^  a  distinctly  Chartist  body  with 
a  policy  of  Universal  Suffrage. 

It  was  reorganised  with  an  addition  of  seventy  new 
members  "  for  the  express  purpose  of  inquiring  into  matters 
of  which  they  had  previously  no  knowledge." 

"  The  facts  stated  at  the  meeting,"  says  Cargill  in  a  letter 
to  Monteith,  "came  upon  them  hke  a  clap  of  thunder; 
and  as  the  Northern  Political  Union  is  a  leading  one,  the 
subject  taken  up  energetically  by  them  will  not  fail  also  to 
be  considered  with  attention  by  the  rest  of  the  working 
classes." 

A  day  or  two  before  this  meeting  Cardo,  Taylor  and 
Juhus  Harney  had  spoken  together  at  a  meeting  at  Carlisle, ^ 

1  See  Northern  Liberator,  April,  1840. 

2  The  meeting  was  a  higlily  respectable  one  for  the  "  Promotion 
of  Sabbath  Observance"  ;  but  Cardo  and  his  followers  took  possession 
of  it  by  force  and  used  it  for  a  very  different  purpose.  They  had  been 
refused  the  use  of  the  Town  Hall  by  the  Mayor.  The  full  account  of 
it  is  given  in  the  Northern  Liberator,  which  strongly  sympathised  with 
the  Urquhart  movement.  The  NoHhern  Star  was,  on  the  other 
hand,  fierce  in  its  abuse  of  the  "  Foreign  Policy  Men." 


94  DAVID  URQUHART 

denouncing  the  treasonable  Foreign  Policy  of  the  Govern- 
ment which  had  brought  the  country  into  its  condition  of 
distress.  Cardo  was  already  becoming  known  as  belonging 
to  the  "  Foreign  Policy  "  party.  He  was  a  shoemaker  by 
trade,  and  evidently  a  man  of  quick  intelligence  and  much 
personal  attraction,  with  the  powers  and  temperament  of 
an  orator.  Robert  Monteith  says,  in  describing  the  effect 
he  produced  at  a  public  meeting :  "He  was  firm,  earnest  and 
sonorous  to  a  degree  I  had  no  notion  of,  a  Danton  without 
his  ferocity."  In  the  Convention  he  was  on  the  side  of 
physical  force,  and  opposed  James  Cobbett's  resolution 
that  the  Convention  should  oppose  any  contempt  of  law 
and  confine  itself  to  presenting  the  People's  Petition.  Cardo 
said  that  the  resolution  "  amounted  to  a  gagging  bill,"  and 
maintained  that  the  people  "  should  not  be  dictated  to." 

He  took  a  prominent  part  in  the  meeting  of  Chartists  at 
Birmingham  to  protest  against  the  summary  and  despotic 
arrest  of  Dr.  Taylor.  Even  after  his  conversion  he  by  no 
means  gave  up  his  Chartist  friends.  He  brought  many  of 
them  with  him  to  the  Urquhart  camp.  Of  these  one  of  the 
most  valuable  was  Warden,  a  man  of  very  different  nature 
to  himself. 

Warden  was  the  first  chairman  of  the  Metropolitan  Trades 
Union,  a  society  of  men  which  had  broken  away  from  the 
Owenites,  and  whose  programme  combined  Radical  reform 
with  a  moderate  amount  of  co-operation.  William  Benbow 
was  among  its  members  and  Henry  Hetherington,  the  editor 
of  the  Poor  Man's  Guardian,  which  alone  reports  its  first 
meeting.  This  society  merged  into  the  "National  Union 
of  the  Working  Classes,"  out  of  which  the  Chartist  move- 
ment sprang.  Warden  was  the  delegate  for  Bolton  at  the 
Convention,  a  man  of  dehcate  health,  sensitive  conscience 
and  rich  intelUgence.  He  was  first  a  carpenter  then  a 
gardener  by  trade,  and  for  his  recreation  he  studied  the 
Dialogues  of  Plato.  Warden  gave  in  his  allegiance  to 
David  Urquhart,  because  he  it  was,  he  said,  through  whom 
he  had  found  the  truth. 

*'  Since  the  time  I  met  with  Mr.  Urquhart,"  he  wrote 
to  Montieth  six  months  after  the  opening  of  the  campaign, 


CHARTISM  96 

"  I  have  been  endeavouring  to  gain  a  clearer  conception 
of  the  truths  which  were  then  for  the  first  time  revealed 
to  me.  My  perceptions,  though  dim  and  indistinct,  are 
sufficiently  clear  to  convince  me,  that  in  the  course  we 
have  pursued  for  the  past  two  years  we  have  been  radically 
wrong;  we  have  been  pursuing  a  political  phantom  while 
England  was  rapidly  sinking  into  the  grave  of  nations. 
My  object  was  (and  I  entered  into  the  struggle  with  the  most 
perfect  self-abnegation)  to  restore  to  the  working  classes 
that  privilege  which  they  had  lost,  and  which  I  conceived 
the  other  classes  possessed — self-government;  but  I  did 
not  perceive  that  in  losing  its  simplicity  of  character,  in 
allowing  its  perceptions  to  be  clouded  by  error,  it  had  also 
lost  the  faculty  of  self-government  as  completely  as  the 
man  who,  having  lost  his  eyes,  has  lost  the  faculty  of  sight; 
and  that  simply  to  add  to  the  number  of  electors,  when  all 
aUke  were  ignorant  of  the  causes  of  national  greatness  or 
national  decay,  would  only  have  the  effect  of  leaving  us 
where  we  were,  or  perhaps  make  our  doAvnfall  more  certain, 
since  all  classes  from  their  common  ignorance  must  have 
been  committed  to  the  same  fatal  policy." 

Westrup  may  be  called  the  first  convert.  He  had  been 
attracted  to  Urquhart  and  his  friends  by  their  views  on 
commerce,  and  it  was  through  him  that  the  Chartists  were 
brought  in  the  first  instance  into  contact  with  the  Foreign 
Policy  movement. 

Lowery,  another  Chartist  leader,  was  a  Newcastle  working 
man  and  a  member  of  the  Convention.  He  had  taken  part 
in  the  hard  and  thankless  task  of  trying  to  convert  Cornwall 
to  Chartism,  which  never  succeeded  well  in  mainly  agri- 
cultural districts.  He  had  always  been  on  the  Law  and 
Order  side  of  the  Convention,  and  in  1840  he  had  put  for- 
ward a  scheme  before  the  meeting  of  delegates  at  Manchester 
for  the  contesting  of  Parliamentary  seats. 

Cargill  gained  him  to  the  cause  in  the  April  of  1840. 
In  July  he  was  sent  as  a  missionary,  having  earned  the 
enthusiastic  good  opinion  of  Charles  Attwood.^  "  In 
eloquence,"  said  Cargill,  "  Lowery  has  always  been  the 
first  man  here."     "  Lowery  is  the  greatest  man  they  have, 

1  One  of  David  Uiquhart's  earliebt  and  most  enthusiastic  sup- 
porters, brother  of  Thomas  Attwood,  of  "  Birmingham  Political 
Union  "  fame. 


96  DAVID  URQUHART 

most  eloquent  and  noble,"  writes  Monteith  in  a  letter 
asking  if  he  shall  be  put  up  at  a  Glasgow  meeting  to  oppose 
ColUnSj  always  an  enemy  to  the  cause.  Lowery  was  one 
of  the  few  prominent  Chartists  who  adopted  Urquhart's 
views  and  promulgated  them  without  making  enemies  of  his 
old  friends.  He  never  lost  touch  with  Chartist  movements 
and  seems  to  have  been  a  link  between  the  Urquhart  move- 
ment in  Newcastle  and  the  Northern  PoUtical  Union. 
Cargill  also  succeeded  in  winning  over  Thomason,  a  Scotch 
delegate  to  the  Convention,  and  at  first  a  vehement  opposer 
of  the  "  Foreign  Policy  "  men. 

"  I  have  just  had,"  says  he,  "  two  hours'  conversation 
with  the  only  Chartist  who  opi^osed  us  on  Wednesday,  a 
man  of  immense  influence  among  them,  called  Thomason. 
Perfect  success  !  The  utmost  confidence  is  estabhshed, 
and  he  desires  to  go  to  Glasgow  to  see  you.  He  has  requested 
from  me  all  the  publications  on  foreign  affairs,  which  I 
have  given  him,  and  he  is  determined  to  investigate  them 
with  the  deepest  attention.  He  requested  me  to  lend  him 
Turkey  and  Its  Resources.  He  begged  me  in  particular  to 
procure  him  a  copy  of  Vattel.  He  is  going  on  a  tour,  being 
chiefly  actuated  by  the  desire  of  laying  our  subjects  before 
the  people.  Yet  this  is  the  man  who  said  only  on  Wednes- 
day that  if  any  person  thought  to  make  Foreign  Pohcy 
a  stepping-stone  to  power  they  would  find  themselves 
horribly  mistaken.     '  Only  the  Charter  !'  " 

Thomason  made  rapid  progress.  This  letter  of  Cargill's 
is  dated  April,  1840.  In  June  he  wrote  from  Darlington, 
when  he  was  on  a  missionary  tour,  to  report  progress.  He 
had  had  two  open-air  meetings  on  Sunday,  one  on  the 
Bratts  near  Bishop  Auckland,  and  another  on  Monday  just 
outside  the  town.  His  first  glimpse  at  world  pohtics  had 
evidently  been  to  him,  as  it  was  to  so  many  of  the  working 
men,  a  passport  into  a  wider  world. 

"  I  find,"  he  writes,  "  in  examining  these  topics  that  my 
mind  is  carried  into  the  interior  of  a  temple,  of  which  I 
could  form  no  conception,  and  I  feel  as  though  I  could  get 
introduced  to  every  clime  and  hold  intercourse  with  uni- 
versal man.  Party  and  its  paltryisms  are  not  worth  notice 
when  placed  beside  the  rights  of  nations  and  the  rights  of 
man." 


CHARTISM  97 

Side  by  side  with  Thomason's  work  went  his  studies. 

"  Would  you  be  so  kind  as  to  get  me  two  copies  of  the 
Boundary  Pam2)hleis,"  he  says.  Again,  in  September  he 
writes  from  Manchester,  whither  he  had  gone  from  Darhng- 
ton,  to  ask  for  advice  as  to  where  he  can  get  the  Portfolio, 
the  History  of  Poland,  and  the  Orations  of  Deynosthenes. 
His  studies  since  May  have,  he  says,  inchided  "  twice 
reading  Vattel,  MacNeill  on  the  East,  Urquhart's  Spirit  of 
the  East,  and  Turkey  and  Its  Eesources." 

That  he  had  not  been  idle  anyone  will  admit  who  has 
read  these  works  but  once  ! 

Last  came  "  old  Richards,"  who  had  been  sent  by  the 
Convention  to  agitate  in  the  Potteries  for  the  Charter. 
He  was  on  the  side  of  Law  and  Order,  and  had  tried  to 
impress  it  on  the  operatives  there,  but  found  the  conditions 
of  labour  in  the  Potteries  so  deplorable  that  he  feared  ' '  all 
will  be  of  no  avail,  this  being  the  language  used  in  these 
places :  '  Better  to  die  by  the  sword  than  to  perish  with 
hunger.'  "  No  wonder,  when  men  working  fifteen  hours  a 
day  found  that  the  utmost  they  could  earn  was  seven  or 
eight  shillings  a  week  ! 

Richards  came  into  the  Urquhart  movement  under  the 
wing  of  Cardo,  and  in  spite  of  his  age  and  infirmities  (he 
was  over  sixty  and  in  ill-health),  he  was  not  the  least  en- 
thusiastic of  the  little  band.  At  Trowbridge  he  reports 
having  addressed  a  meeting  of  six  hundred  men  in  the 
Chartists'  pubhc  room,  and  so  interested  them  that  they 
there  and  then  formed  a  Committee  to  Investigate  Foreign 
Policy.     Bristol  he  visited  also. 

"  I  arrived  there,"  he  says,  "  about  two  on  Saturday/ 
and  after  some  time  found  some  of  the  most  intelligent  of 
the  working  men  there :  we  entered  into  conversation  on  the 
Foreign  Policy  of  these  kingdoms,  a  subject  entirely  new  to 
them;  they  were  well  aware  that  something  was  wrong, 
but  knew  not  what :  we  spent  about  two  hours  in  conversa- 
tion, and  when  I  was  leaving  them  they  asked  me  for  proof 
of  what  I  had  stated.  I  then  presented  them  with  some 
pamphlets,  obtaining  their  promise  to  investigate  for  them- 
selves and  also  to  form  a  Committee  to  report  thereon." 

7 


98  DAVID  URQUHART 

Such  were  the  most  prominent  of  the  old  Chartists,  by 
whose  means  Urquhart  and  his  Uttle  company  of  friends 
carried  on  a  strenuous  cam^Jaign  from  1839  to  1841. 

Having  successfully  combated  in  many  places  the 
Chartist  danger,  his  one  idea  was  to  gain  the  mass  of  the 
working  men  of  England  to  his  side,^  that  together  they 
might  work  for  the  restoration  of  Law  and  Justice  at  home 
and  abroad,  and  so  avert  the  peril  which  he  was  convinced 
threatened  the  safety,  nay,  the  very  existence,  of  England. 
He  had  with  him,  besides  his  Chartist  friends,  a  little  band 
of  followers,  whose  devotion  is  all  the  more  touching  when 
we  realise,  as  we  must,  that  Mr.  Urquhart  was  an  extra- 
ordinarily difficult,  sometimes  impossible,  leader.  His 
demands  on  the  time,  health  and  money  of  his  friends 
were  immense  and  unceasing,  and  could  only  have  been 
borne  by  those  who  reahsed  to  the  full  how  much  more 
than  he  exacted  he  was  prepared  himself  to  give. 

With  a  really  tender  and  sensitive  disposition  he  could 
be  as  hard  as  steel.  His  great  and  piercing  intelligence  was 
absolutely  intolerant  of  stupidity  or  of  want  of  agreement 
on  points  which,  because  to  him  they  were  obvious,  he 
conceived  they  must  be  so  to  all  thinking  beings. 

Urquhart 's  aim  was  to  establish  in  all  the  places  where 
Chartism  had  been  rife  Associations  for  the  Study  of  National 
and  International  Affairs — "  Committees  for  the  Investiga- 
tion of  Diplomatic  Documents." 

The  original  idea  was  that  these  committees  should  con- 
sist ol  all  classes,  but  this  project  failed.  The  real  interest 
evinced  by  the  working  men  was  not  shared  by  the  others, 

^  After  the  early  strenuous  days  of  the  Chartist  Rising,  one  of 
the  first  tasks  to  which  Urquhart  set  himself  was  to  try  and  avert 
the  fate  which  hung  over  the  unfortunate  Frost,  now  imprisoned  in 
Monmouth  Gaol,  and  about  to  be  tried  for  his  High  Treason.  He 
was  convinced  that  if  the  Government  had  listened  to  his  warnings, 
the  Newport  Rising  would  never  have  taken  place,  and,  moreover, 
that  Frost  was  not  responsible  for  it ;  it  had  been  engineered  secretly 
by  a  little  coterie  under  the  influence  of  Benyouski,  and  Frost  had 
unwilhngly  and  from  a  sense  of  loyalty  to  his  associates  been  drawn 
into  it  at  the  last  moment. 

He  was  seconded  by  Westrup  and  Cardo.  The  latter  went  down 
to  Wales  to  see  what  news  he  could  gather,  and  was  arrested  at 
Newport,  but  released,  as  nothing  could  be  proved  against  him. 


CHARTISM  91) 

to  whom  the  distressful  state  of  the  country  had  never 
come  home  in  the  same  way. 

Urquhart  himself  was  ubiquitous.  He  was  in  Liverpool 
one  day,  addressing  meetings  of  Chartists  often  till  two  or 
three  in  the  morning;  the  next  day  in  Newcastle,  working 
at  the  same  high  pressure  for  a  week,  allowing  himself 
scarcely  time  to  sleep  or  to  eat;  then  on  to  Glasgow,  to 
Sheffield  or  Manchester.  He  was  always  accompanied  by 
one  or  more  of  his  friends,  from  whom  he  exacted  an  equal 
amount  of  work. 

Monteith  of  Carstairs  wrote  to  Mr.  Cargill  about  six 
months  after  the  campaign  had  opened: 

"  I  take  advantage  of  a  very  short  interval  of  leisure  to 
put  down  a  few  recollections  of  a  time  which  I  am  assured 
will  be  esteemed  one  of  the  most  remarkable  in  the  annals 
of  England.  ...  I  have  been  present  at  scenes  in  which 
the  select  of  the  people  have  been  addressed  in  a  tone  to 
which  their  ears  have  become  utterly  unaccustomed.  No 
conciliation,  no  dexterous  play  with  the  passions  or  pre- 
judices, no  endeavouring  to  win  by  the  sacrifice  or  even 
the  concealment  of  the  eternal  truth.  Rebuke,  reproof, 
warning  have  been  the  instruments  employed,  and  the 
results  have  been  invariably  interest,  humiliation,  awe, 
submission,  and  the  promise  of  zealous  co-operation. 

"  In  consequence  of  the  course  adopted  at  Glasgow  it 
became  possible  to  do  more  in  a  week  at  Newcastle  than 
during  the  previous  weeks  already  mentioned. 

"  A  committee  of  investigation  into  the  state  of  the 
country  and  the  crimes  of  the  Foreign  Minister^  has  been 
appointed  there,  remarkable  not  only  for  the  subject  of 
its  labours,  but  for  the  elements  of  which  it  is  composed. 
Classes  hitherto  in  a  state  of  rancorous  hostility  are  there 
linked  together,  operatives  and  merchants  sit  together  at 
the  same  table,  conning  over  the  same  papers  and  espousing 
the  same  convictions.  .  .  .  Hence  Carlisle,  the  next  scene 
of  our  labours,  was  won  at  a  single  meeting  of  about  three 
hours,  a  meeting  at  which  the  principal  popular  leader  was 
not  only  dethroned  before  his  followers  but  compelled  to 

1  Lord  Palmer^ston.  Urquhart  and  his  followers  were  convinced 
that  Palmerston,  in  many  matters  of  foreign  policy,  had  acted  as 
Russia's  tool.  His  connection  with  the  Princess  Lieven  aroused 
the  suspicion  that  he  was  not  always  an  unwillincr  tool. 


100  DAVID  URQUHART 

leave  the  room  as  unworthy  of  information  and  instruction, 
while  they  were  retained  and  made  allies  in  a  new  cause. 
The  operatives  were  to  have  formed  a  committee  and  have 
agreed  to  visit  the  upper  classes  of  all  parties,  to  compel 
their  attention  to  these  subjects  and  to  invoke  their  co- 
operation. 

"  At  Bolton,  whither  we  immediately  proceeded,  the 
utmost  excitement  had  been  previously  raised.  A  large 
Committee  consisting  of  operatives  and  merchants  has  been 
there  established.  A  similar  work  was  performed  at  Roch- 
dale. The  last  scene  of  our  labours  was  Birmingham, 
where,  as  is  usual  with  places  of  importance,  more  difficulty 
was  to  be  expected,  more  self-sufficiency  of  the  leaders  to 
be  encountered.  Notwithstanding  this  and  the  great 
anxiety  experienced  by  Mr.  Urquhart,  the  leader  of  popular 
feeling  there  came  with  four  or  five  of  his  followers.  The 
result  was  far  beyond  what  I  had  anticipated," 

The  converted  Chartists  had  become  infected  with  the 
spirit  of  their  leader.  Thomason's  committee  at  Manchester 
was  so  flourishing  that  it  was  deemed  unnecessary  for  Mr. 
Urquhart  to  visit  that  town,  and  in  the  Potteries,  "  that 
hot-bed  of  political  agitation  and  the  centre  of  powerful 
Chartist  organisations,"  the  committee  which  Richards  had 
formed  had  thrown  itself  heart  and  soul  into  the  examina- 
tion of  the  real  causes  of  distress  and  their  remedies.  All 
the  members  asked  for  were  papers,  documents  and  books 
to  aid  them  in  their  studies. 

Mary  Ann  Grove,  an  energetic  Chartist,  the  Secretary  of 
the  Women's  Radical  and  Female  Political  Union  of  Bir- 
mingham, became  a  warm  supporter  of  the  Urquhart  cause. 
Dr.  John  Taylor  was  also  much  impressed  by  an  interview 
of  his  own  seeking  which  he  had  with  the  great  man.  The 
two  were  brought  together  by  the  good  offices  of  Dr.  Bryce, 
Urquhart's  friend  and  medical  adviser  ever  since  the  Greek 
War  days,  and  a  sympathiser  with  the  Chartists.  We  have 
accounts  of  the  interview  from  both  the  actors  in  it. 

Urquhart  writes : 

"  I  have  had  a  conversation  of  nearlj'^  five  hours  with 
Dr.  T.  I  never  so  shook  any  man.  He  seemed  tortured, 
struggling  between  responsibility,  shame  and  failure  brought 


CHARTISM  101 

home,  and  self-love  and  pride  that  linked  him  to  a  system, 
and  the  greater  shame  of  sinldng  in  the  estimation  of  those 
he  had  led  on.  He  prevented  two  of  the  secondary  men 
from  coming,  and  continued  the  same  line  after  our  con- 
versation, yet  volunteered  to  send  a  packet  of  letters  for 
the  men  he  thought  of  in  the  places  I  might  visit.  I  must 
add  that  Dr.  T.  repeatedly  asserted  that  bloodshed  and 
convulsion  were  inevitable.     The  die  was  cast  !" 

The  following  is  Taylor's  account  of  the  meeting  written 
to  a  Chartist  friend:  "I  have  had  four  hours'  conference 
with  Mr.  Urquhart.  He  is  truly  an  extraordinary  man,  and 
destined  to  play  a  great  part,  but  he  has  neither  time  nor 
materials  for  his  present  project.  I  have  given  him  letters 
to  men  who  can  aid  him,  but  I  beUeve  we  have  parted 
never  to  meet  again. "^ 

Cardo  met  with  hearty  abuse  from  some  of  his  own 
associates :  he  was  a  "  renegade,"  a  "  Tory  spy,"  a  "  traitor," 
he  had  been  bought.  His  life  was  more  than  once  threatened 
by  his  old  associates,  and  he  had  the  additional  incon- 
venience of  being  shadowed  by  the  police  as  a  Chartist. 

The  cry  of  "  Tory,  Foreign  Policy  humbugs  "  was  indeed 
raised  all  over  the  country  in  proportion  to  the  success  of 
the  little  company,  who,  it  must  be  said,  courted  abuse  by 
maldng  existing  Chartist  organisations  the  base  of  their 
operations,  and  by  always  being  present  and  speaking  at 
Chartist  meetings.  One  working  man,  who  introduced  the 
subject  at  a  Greenock  Trades  Union  meeting,  was  told  that 
he  was  connected  with  a  party  which  was  seeking  to  divert 
the  people's  attention  from  the  Charter,  that  before  the 
people  paid  attention  to  these  doctrines  they  must  have 
the  power  to  alter  them. 

"  Well,"  said  this  apostle,  "  you  have  not  got  the  power, 
that  is  quite  clear.  You  have  got  to  get  the  power;  it 
won't  come  to  you,  and  knowledge  upon  this  as  on  every 
subject  will  assist  you  in  getting  political  power."  He  then 
proceeded  to  explain  that  in  various  towns  there  were  com- 
mittees of  men  who  were  so  determined  to  understand  the 
foreign  relations  of  this  country  that  they  met  every  week 

^  This  was  probably  the  case.     Dr.  Taylor  died  in  ISll, 


102  DAVID  URQUHART 

to  investigate  Parliamentary  documents.  His  opponent 
replied  that  these  committees  did  not  consist  of  Chartists. 
"  On  the  contrary,"  said  he,  "  every  one  of  them  is  a 
Chartist."     "  Opposition,"  he  remarks,  "  now  ceased." 

The  success  of  Urquhart's  pupils  was  largely  owing  to  the 
methods  he  himself  used  for  their  instruction. 

He  always  made  a  point  of  instructing  them  in  dialectic. 
*'  The  art  of  proving  your  opponent  wrong,"  he  would  often 
say,  "  hes  not  so  much  in  proving  the  strength  of  your 
cause  as  in  exposing  the  weakne-ss  of  his." 

At  the  meetings  and  conversations  he  had  with  the  opera- 
tives he  usually  allowed  them  to  choose  some  subject  on 
which  to  question  him,  and  he,  then  and  there,  without 
books  or  papers,  would  enter  with  them  into  obscure  points 
of  diplomacy,  would  explain  to  them  the  bearing  of  treaties 
with  all  their  secret  articles,  would  trace  out  the  trend  of 
a  certain  line  of  policy  and  its  results,  with  a  brilliancy  that 
a  statesman  might  have  envied,  and  with  such  simplicity 
that  these  uneducated  working  men  could  follow  him  and 
reproduce  in  their  talk  with  their  fellows  the  knowledge  he 
had  given  them. 

"  Yesterday,"  wrote  Colonel  Pringle  Taylor,  "  several 
gentlemen  dined  with  Mr.  Urquhart  and,  in  the  evening, 
about  six  operatives  waited  upon  him,  and  several  gentle- 
men. Being  much  exhausted  by  the  labours  of  the  day 
and  the  conversation  at  dinner,  which  was  very  effective 
indeed,  he  confined  himself  to  three-quarters  of  an  hour 
in  addressing  the  party  after  dinner.  Having  requested 
Mr.  Richards,  the  leader  of  the  operatives  at  Hanley  in  the 
Potteries,  to  name  a  subject,  the  Blockade  of  Mexico  was 
selected. 

"  He  showed  the  violation  of  International  Law  in  that 
blockade,  and  the  collusion  of  the  Foreign  Secretary  in 
promoting  it  to  the  injury  of  British  commerce;  he  pointed 
out  that  the  operatives  employed  in  manufactures,  if  the 
loss  in  wages  were  divided  among  them  all,  had  each  lost 
thirty  shillings  by  the  blockade;  that  besides,  Russia  had 
at  least  benefited  by  it  in  the  sum  of  £700,000,  which  had 
principally  come  out  of  the  pockets  of  the  operatives  of 
this  country;  that  the  merchants  who  had  appealed  against 
it  had  done  so  in  a  manner  which  had  strengthened  instead 


CHARTISM  103 

of  weakening  the  action  of  the  traitorous  Foreign  Secretary ; 
that  the  nation,  and  certainly  all  the  operatives,  had  sub- 
mitted uncomplainingly  to  the  injury  inflicted  on  them; 
that  their  apathy  and  indifference  was  criminal  and  must 
tend  to  the  downfall  of  the  State ;  that  this  was  only  one 
of  many  similar  acts  destructive  of  their  interests  and 
ruinous  to  the  nation;  that  if  they  had  any  regard  for  them- 
selves and  the  condition  of  their  families,  if  they  had  any 
sense  of  the  duty  of  man  to  man,  if  they  were  not  entirely 
degraded  and  infamous  as  men  and  as  citizens,  they  would 
apply  themselves  to  the  investigation  of  these  matters  and 
save  their  country  from  that  annihilation  which  otherwise 
was  inevitable. 

"  The  exposition  was  admirable,  the  appeal  powerful;  it 
is  impossible  to  give  even  a  feeble  representation  of  it, 
and  still  more  so  to  convey  the  powerful  impression  produced 
upon  all  present.  A  gentleman  present,  highly  connected, 
a  Whig,  hitherto  an  opponent,  said  he  would  give  £1,000 
to  get  Mr.  Urquhart  into  Parliament.  Mr.  Charles  Att- 
wood  spoke  of  Mr.  Urquhart  as  an  apostle,  and  said  he 
never  could  have  believed  that  any  man  was  given  such 
power.  The  effect  on  the  operatives  was  no  less  astound- 
ing ;  they  have  gone  forth  to  act  day  and  night  in  awakening 
their  fellow-men  to  a  knowledge  of  what  they  have  learnt, 
to  an  appreciation  of  the  wonderful  man  they  have  seen, 
and  to  the  conviction  that  through  him  alone  can  the  nation 
be  saved  not  merely  from  dangers  of  an  appaUing  nature, 
but  from  annihilation  and  horrors  which  it  has  not  hitherto 
entered  into  their  minds  to  imagine. 

"A  Central  Committee  has  been  formed  in  London  to 
communicate  with  the  several  provincial  committees  which 
have  been  formed,  and  the  attention  which  is  being  given 
to  the  subject  in  London  is  so  rapidly  extending,  and  pro- 
ducing such  powerful  effect  upon  men's  minds  that  the 
result  can  no  longer  be  doubtful." 


CHAPTER  V 

THE    ASSOCIATIONS   FOR    INVESTIGATING   FOREIGN 
AFFAIRS  AND  ENGLAND'S   RELATIONS  WITH 

FRANCE 

In  the  autumn  of  1840  arose  the  crisis  between  England 
and  France  brought  about  by  the  exclusion  of  France  from 
the  concert  of  the  Powers  on  the  Eastern  Question.  Obvi- 
ously this  insult  to  France  was  due  to  the  influence  of 
Russia,  who  had  seen  in  the  French  support  given  to 
Mehemet  Ali  an  opportunity  for  breaking  up  the  Entente 
Cordiale  of  the  Western  Powers  against  the  autocracies  of 
the  North  and  Centre  which  was  formed  in  1830. 

Russia's  plan  to  create  a  breach  between  England  and 
France  met  with  no  obstacle  from  the  two  Powers  them- 
selves. M.  Thiers  was  carrying  on  a  crooked  and  under- 
hand pohcy  in  the  East,  and  Lord  Palmerston  not  only 
disUked  the  French,  but  had  an  extreme  personal  antipathy 
to  Louis  Philippe. 

It  was  therefore  without  difficulty  that  the  Russian 
Cabinet  succeeded  in  arranging  that  in  the  Conference  of 
the  Powers  to  deliberate  upon  measures  to  be  ta.ken  against 
Mehemet  Ah,  France  should  be  ignored. 

England  and  France  had  been  allies  for  the  past  ten 
years,  and  France  naturally  looked  upon  this  action  as 
a  deadly  insult,  as  indeed  it  was.  Preparations  for  war  were 
begun,  and  her  fury  was  not  diminished  when  the  Russian 
Fleet  was  allowed  to  pass  the  shores  of  England  and  France 
on  her  way  from  the  Baltic  to  the  Mediterranean;  she 
rightly  conceived  it  to  be  a  demonstration  against  herself. 

David  Urquhart  took  the  hne  that  it  was  an  unjustifiable 
breach  of  the  Law  of  Nations,^  and  a  cleverly  laid  scheme 

1  Because  it  was  a  breach  of  the  Treaty  of  July,  1839,  whereby 
England,  France,  Austria  and  Russia  were  ijledged  always  to  act 
together  at  the  Porte. 

^  104 


ASSOCIATIONS  FOR  FOREIGN  AFFAIRS       105 

on  the  part  of  Russia  to  bring  about  a  war  between  England 
and  France  during  which  she  might  carry  out,  without 
opposition,  her  designs  on  the  Porte. 

The  Treaty  was  signed  on  July  15th.  England's  share 
in  it  was  entirely  due  to  the  influence  of  Lord  Palmerston, 
who  had  threatened  to  place  his  resignation  in  Lord  Mel- 
bourne's hands  unless  his  very  unwilhng  colleagues  agreed 

to  it. 

The  whole  matter,  the  action  as  well  as  the  manner  of 
its  doing,  was  calculated  to  wound  France  in  her  most 
vulnerable  points.  And  M.  Thiers  declared  that  the  last 
franc  and  the  last  drop  of  the  blood  of  France  would  be 
expended  to  avert  the  consequences  of  the  Treaty.  This 
was  tantamount  to  a  threat  of  war,  and  war  Urquhart 
was  most  anxious  to  avert.  To  this  end  he  determined 
that  the  people  of  England  should  communicate  dhectly 
with  the  people  of  France,  to  make  it  clear  that  the  Treaty 
was  merely  a  concern  of  their  respective  Governments,  that 
the  Enghsh  people  were  against  it  and  were  determined  if 
possible  to  avert  its  consequences.  He  published  a  mani- 
festo to  the  committees  formed  for  the  examination  of 
diplomatic  documents.  He  pubUshed  pamphlets,  wrote 
letters  to  the  newspapers,  held  pubhc  meetings,  and  finally 
with  some  of  his  friends  and  three  of  the  operatives  on  his 
committees,  Lowery,  Thomason  and  Thomas,  went  on  a 
deputation  to  Paris.  The  crisis,  if  it  did  nothing  else, 
showed  the  sincerity  of  the  men  who  followed  Urquhart, 
and  it  gained  him  adherents,  while  at  the  same  time  it 
augmented  the  hostility  of  his  enemies. 

The  Morning  Post  was  full  of  ridicule.  The  Chartist 
Northern  Liberator,  however,  always  more  or  less  sympathetic, 
warmly  espoused  his  cause.  All  the  missioners  were  sum- 
moned to  the  North,  and  a  great  pubhc  meeting  was  held, 
which  it  reports  at  great  length.  At  Carhsle  two  large 
meetings  were  held  within  a  week,  at  which  Richards, 
Cardo  and  Warden  spoke.  Richards  was  particularly 
happy  in  the  hne  he  adopted.  He  began  by  a  declaration 
of  the  importance  of  a  just  Foreign  Pohcy,  but  was  inter- 
rupted with  a  question,  "  What  about  the  Charter  ?" 


106  DAVID  URQUHART 

He  answered  that  he  was  a  democrat.  He  went  a  lot 
farther  than  many  Chartists.  The  cause  of  hberty  through- 
out the  world  was  progressing.  But  there  was  a  party  in 
England  and  throughout  the  world  to  prevent  the  spread 
of  democratic  institutions.  There  was  Russia,  there  was 
Prussia,  and  Austria  was  stepping  into  the  shoes  of  Prussia. 
At  a  time  like  the  present,  when  liberty  was  stretching  out 
her  hands  to  lay  hold  of  the  prize,  at  that  moment  the 
Foreign  Minister  offends  a  friendly  Power,  and  links  himself 
with  the  despotic  Powers.  What  was  the  union  with  the 
despotic  Powers  for  ?  To  bring  about  a  war  between 
England  and  France  when  our  commerce  was  barely  suffi- 
cient to  support  our  operatives,  and  war  with  France  would 
throw  millions  out  of  employment.  He  wanted  the  Charter 
quite  as  much  as  that  gentleman  who  called  out,  and  would 
maintain  it,  and  if  necessary  fight  for  it. 

Cardo  thereupon  proposed  a  resolution: 

"  That  those  who  had  hitherto  had  the  management  of 
affairs,  from  the  Cabinet  to  the  Electoral  Body,  were  alike 
guilty  of  the  betrayal  of  their  trust,  and  that  therefore  the 
only  hope  of  safety  left  to  the  nation  was  in  the  people 
understanding  and  obtaining  the  management  of  their  own 
affairs  by  securing  the  full  enjoyment  of  the  principles 
contained  in  the  People's  Charter." 

The  success  of  this  meeting  was  such  that  another  was 
held,  this  time  in  the  theatre,  which  was  filled.  At  this 
Warden  spoke.  He  said  the  Treaty  of  July  was  the  renewal 
of  a  war  against  freedom  in  France,  Turkey,  Poland  and 
Circassia.     He  proposed  a  resolution: 

"  That  it  is  the  opinion  of  this  Meeting  that  the  Treaty 
between  Russia,  Prussia,  Austria  and  England  is  a  Treaty 
to  promote  and  forward  Russian  influence  and  aggression: 
that  the  possession  of  the  Dardanelles  and  the  Caucasus 
will  give  Russia  a  dangerous  preponderance:  that  this 
Meeting  is  of  the  opinion  that  Lord  Palmerston  is  a  Traitor 
to  his  country,  that  he  has  betrayed  his  colleagues  and 
injured  his  native  land.  And  this  Meeting  is  of  opinion 
that  the  House  of  Commons  injures  the  interests  of  the  British 
Empire,  and  they  pledge  themselves  to  do  all  in  their  power 
to  bring  about  a  complete  reform  in  that  House." 

A  curiously  modern  interlude  took  place  at  this  meeting 
which,  in  spite  of  a  little  opposition,  Warden  carried  with 


ASSOCIATIONS  FOR  FOREIGN  AFFAIRS      107 

him.  An  opponent  inquired  why  so  much  fuss  was  made 
of  Poland  and  Cir cassia,  whereas  nothing  was  said  about 
Ireland. 

Warden  replied  that  Ireland  was  on  exactly  the  same 
footing  as  Poland  and  Circassia,  but  that  was  no  reason 
why  she  should  be  dragged  into  an  unjust  war. 

At  a  meeting  in  Birmingham  Charles  Attwood  spoke  to 
25,000  people. 

But  it  was  Newcastle  which  took  up  the  question  most 
warmly.^  The  Newcastle  Committee  for  Investigating 
Foreign  Affairs  joined  with  the  town  to  send  Charles  Att- 
wood, Thomas  Doubleday,  Horn,  Grey,  Gilmour  and  Loutit 
charged  with  a  petition  to  M.  Thiers,  under  the  following 
instructions : 

"  Your  chief  duty  is  to  make  known  to  the  People,  the 
King,  and  the  Cabinet  of  France  the  earnest  desire  of  the 
People  of  England  to  cement  more  firmly  the  feelings  of 
friendship  and  sympathy  which  we  feel  towards  the  French 
People. 

"  You  will  endeavour  to  convince  the  French  People  that 
the  EngHsh  People  see  in  the  comphcations  arising  out  of 
the  Treaty  of  July  15  no  justifiable  cause  whatever  for  the 
interruption  of  peace  between  the  two  countries. 

"  You  will  therefore  impress  on  the  French  Government 
the  absolute  necessity,  which  is  incumbent  on  it,  for  our 
common  security,  to  protest  nistantly  and  decidedly  against 
the  Treaty  as  an  act  of  outrage  on  the  Law  of  Nations  in 
general,  and  of  danger  to  our  two  nations  in  particular. 

"  You  will  take  pains  to  impress  on  the  French  Govern- 
ment that  it  is  the  interest  and  therefore  the  imperative 
duty,  not  only  of  England  and  of  France,  but  of  the  rest 
of  Europe  to  secure  the  independence  of  Turkey,  Circassia, 
Persia,  and  Sweden  from  the  aggressions  of  Russia. 

"  It  will  be  your  duty  to  impress  upon  the  French  People 
the  unanimous  feehng  of  the  people  of  England  that  the 
people  of  France  and  England  and  all  the  Governments 
party  to  the  Treaty  of  Vienna,  require  the  full  and  uncon- 
ditional restoration  of  the  Independence  of  Poland. 

"  The  passage  of  a  Russian  fleet  from  the  Baltic  to  the 

1  The  Northern  Liberator  (October  and  November,  1840)  gives 
full  particulars  of  the  public  meeting  and  speeches  as  well  as  the 
history  of  the  deputation  and  its  doings  in  Paris. 


108  DAVID  URQUHART 

Mediterranean  would  constitute  a  distinct  attack  on  the 
maritime  power  of  England. 

"  In  conclusion  it  is  desired  by  order  of  the  Committee 
that  you  co-operate  by  all  the  means  in  your  power  in  the 
patriotic  exertions  of  Mr.  Urquhart,  our  respected  fellow- 
countryman,  to  avert  the  blow  that  is  being  prepared  and 
the  danger  that  is  suspended  over  our  country,  of  which 
the  hostility  of  France  will  be  the  signal,  and  the  destruction 
of  both  the  consequences  of  its  fall." 

Lowery  was  elected  at  a  large  public  meeting  to  represent 
the  town:  Thomas  and  Thomason  were  sent  to  represent 
the  working  classes.  They  arrived  at  Paris  on  November  13, 
and  on  the  15th  Lowery  wrote  to  the  Chairman  of  the 
Committee  for  Investigating  Foreign  Affairs : 

"  We  arrived  here  on  Friday  night.  On  our  way  here 
we  endeavoured  to  sound  the  feelings  of  the  French  people 
and  found  them  in  some  instances  under  the  war  mania — 
but  mainly  disposed  to  a  friendly  connexion  with  England ; 
yet  they  appeared  at  a  loss  to  understand  how,  if  we  were 
disposed  to  continue  the  French  Alliance,  we  had  allowed 
the  Treaty  of  July  to  be  sanctioned.  We  pointed  out  to 
them  that  the  Treaty  was  the  Act  of  the  Minister — that  he 
was  a  Traitor — and  never  had  we  a  better  opportunity  of 
seeing  how  the  systematic  arrangements  of  falsehood  and 
diplomatic  treachery  were  calculated  to  attain  their  objects; 
here  were  people,  whose  ardent  desire  v/as  to  consider  their 
neighbours  as  friends,  yet  by  the  fraudulent  management 
of  a  Minister  of  England,  were  impressed  with  the  belief 
that  the  people  of  England  were  their  enemies. 

"  Yesterday  we  had  an  interview  with  M.  Faucher, 
Editor  of  the  Courier  FraiiQais.  I  explained  to  him  the 
nature  of  the  Meeting  at  Sunderland,  by  which  I  was 
deputed,  and  the  resolutions  that  were  passed  repudiating 
the  Treaty  of  the  fifteenth  of  July,  and  expressing  their 
esteem  for  and  desire  of  Alhance  with  the  people  of  France. 
He  expressed  wonder  that  there  had  not  been  more  meetings 
than  there  had  been  on  the  subject,  and  thought  that  Sir 
William  Molesworth  had  had  more  influence  than  Mr. 
Attwood;  we  showed  that  he  laboured  under  a  mistake 
and  that  the  subject  was  more  generally  entertained  than 
they  in  France  thought — that  Mr.  Attwood  from  my  know- 
ledge of  the  people  of  England  (which  was  general)  had  a 
larger  share  of  popular  influence  than  INIolesworth  and  that 


ASSOCIATIONS  FOR  FOREIGN  AFFAIRS      109 

coming  from  Newcastle  lately  I  could  assure  him  that  the 
calumnies  of  the  Whig  and  Tory  Press,  as  to  Mr.  Attwood 
not  representing  the  feehng  of  the  people  of  that  district, 
were  unfounded.  That  there  had  been  a  large  pubhc 
meeting  there  lately  commending  the  proceedings  of  Mr. 
Attwood.  M.  Faucher  then  reverted  to  Mr.  Urquhart  and 
Mr.  Attwood,  saying  he  thought  the  Treason  of  LordPalmer- 
ston  had  better  been  kept  out  of  their  proceedings  here, 
that  it  was  purely  an  EngUsh  question  and  did  not  forward 
their  views  here  on  maintaining  the  French  Alhance — we 
showed  it  was  only  by  the  French  understanding  the  Treason 
of  Lord  Palmerston  that  they  could  understand  our  true 
position  and  their  own,  that  his  intentions  could  only  be 
explained  by  his  acts,  which  were  calculated  to  destroy 
the  power  and  influence  of  England  and  render  her  prostra- 
tion subservient  to  Russian  Aggrandisement  to  place  us 
in  collision  with  France  and  weaken  both  her  and  us,  and 
thus  make  the  only  two  European  Kingdoms  that  might 
stand  as  barriers  to  her  usurpations  and  aggressions,  the 
destroyers  of  each  other  and  the  instruments  of  her  ad- 
vancement. M.  Faucher  expressed  his  pleasure  at  our  visit 
and  his  desire  to  extend  our  objects,  yet  he  is  in  a  fettered 
condition  being  a  great  admirer  of  M.  Thiers. 

"To-day  we  have  waited  on  M.  de  Tocqueville,  also  Mr. 
Cavanah  the  Editor  of  the  National  ;  after  explaining  my 
mission,  M.  de  Tocqueville  appeared  to  think  the  treachery 
of  Palmerston  plain,  as  connected  with  his  conduct  to  the 
Persian  Embassy,  and  agreed  with  me  that  it  was  folly  to 
consider  the  Treaty  of  the  fifteenth  of  July  as  aught  but 
calculated  to  injure  England  and  that  it  was  the  act  of 
the  Minister  and  not  of  the  people ;  he  expressed  his  pleasure 
at  our  mission  and  his  hopes  that  the  effects  of  the  Treaty 
would  be  averted  and  its  aim  destroyed,  also  he  said  that 
he  would  assist  us  in  any  way  in  which  he  could  be  useful. 
The  conversation  with  the  Editor  of  the  National  was,  of 
course,  similar  to  the  above.  I  told  him  my  knowledge  of 
the  feehngs  of  the  mass  of  the  English  people  from  moving 
extensively  among  them,  and  that  it  was  anti-Russian  and 
well  disposed  to  France  and  that  the  Treaty  was  the  work 
of  a  Russian  agent,  Palmerston ;  we  pointed  out  Mr.  Cargill's 
pamphlet  and  he  agreed  with  it,  also  that  England  and 
France  had  the  same  interests.  I  told  him  that  this  feeling 
was  extending  fast  in  England,  and  that  from  the  exertions 
of  Mr.  Urquhart  the  people  were  entertaining  and  investi- 
gating the  subject;  he  expressed  his  pleasure  at  these  things, 


110  DAVID  URQUHART 

and  said  that  he  would  forward  my  views  for  producing  a 
good  understanding  and  mention  my  mission  in  his  paper. 

"  To-day  also  we  met  General  Charnowski,  a  Polish 
general  and  naturaUsed  Englishman,  just  returned  from 
Constantinople ;  when  there  he  was  offered  the  command  of 
the  Turkish  army  in  Syi'ia  or  in  Egypt  and  refused.  He 
was  sent  to  Lord  Ponsonby  by  the  English  Government. 
We  explained  to  him  how  we  thought  that  not  only  Poland 
but  England  and  France  could  be  saved,  namely,  by 
understanding  each  their  true  position,  and  acting  accord- 
ingly. He  agreed  with  us,  but  appears  to  have  lost  hope, 
he  says  that  the  Treaty  of  the  fifteenth  of  July  will  have 
a  bad  effect  on  Circassia,  as  representing  England  as  friendly 
to  Russia  and  fears  they  will  be  worn  out.  He  also  says 
the  war  feeling  is  rising  in  Germany  against  France- — ^thus 
are  the  Russians  succeeding  everywhere  by  invidious  means 
and  hired  traitors:  hoping  soon  to  see  these  means 
destroyed, 

I  remain, 

Yours, 
Robert  Lowery." 

On  November  17  he  writes  again  to  the  Chairman  of  the 
Central  Committee  in  London. 

"  Since  I  wrote  last  we  have  been  extremely  busy  from 
morning  until  night,  visiting  those  whom  we  thought  might 
be  useful  in  assisting  to  further  our  object,  we  have  seen 
several  members  of  the  Chamber  and  expect  to  get  intro- 
duced to  a  number  of  others,  and  as  all  honest  men  would 
be  loath  to  think  a  man,  entrusted  with  the  destinies  of 
his  country,  could  be  guilty  of  such  crime  and  wickedness, 
until  they  examined  the  facts,  we  pointed  out  the  series 
of  consecutive  acts  committed  by  him,  all  tending  to  destroy 
the  honour  and  influence  of  his  country,  in  which  he  had 
in  every  instance  forwarded  the  objects  of  the  Russian 
Government;  all  admitted  that  such  had  been  the  con- 
sequences of  those  acts,  and  owned  that  we  had  sufficient 
reasons  for  affirming  his  guilt. 

"  Everyone  we  have  spoken  with  has  expressed  his 
pleasure  at  our  Mission  and  agreed  that  a  war  between 
England  and  France  will  be  destructive  to  the  interests 
of  both  countries,  and  that  the  only  way  to  stop  it  is  to 
get  the  people  of  each  nation  to  speak  out  in  condemnation 
of  the  Treaty  and  of  their  desire  of  alliance;  this,  of  course. 


ASSOCIATIONS  FOR  FOREIGN  AFFAIRS       HI 

is  more  particularly  necessary  for  England  to  do,  as  the 
intelligent  of  the  French  are  very  desirous  of  our  alliance. 

"  The  last  note  of  Lord  Palmerston  has  had  a  most 
pernicious  effect  here,  all  men  of  all  parties  consider  it  an 
intended  insult,  designed  to  produce  hostility.  Le  Comte 
de  Noe,  whom  we  visited  to-day  informed  us  that  it  had 
caused  amendments  to  be  made  in  the  King's  speech,  giving 
it  a  firmer  and  more  warlike  tone. 

"  The  nobleman,  spoken  of  above,  is  decidedly  convinced 
of  the  truth  of  our  views,  and  Mr.  Fyler  was  very  glad  to 
learn  so,  for  when  he  had  called  on  him  he  appeared  to 
hesitate  to  admit  them.  He,  the  Comte  de  Noe,  informs 
me  that  to  his  knowledge  there  has  been  for  the  last  two 
years  a  number  of  persons  travelling  in  our  Indian  posses- 
sions as  French  travellers,  who  were  nothing  else  but 
Russian  agents,  whose  purpose  was  to  view  our  military 
stations,  and  to  sound  the  feelings  of  the  inhabitants,  and 
scatter  the  seeds  of  revolt. 

"  M.  Cabet,  a  member  of  the  Chamber,  whom  we  visited 
to-day  promised  to  procure  me  some  introductions  to  some 
of  the  intelhgent  working  men,  hitherto  we  have  not  been 
able  to  get  access  to  them,  except  by  mixing  in  the  cafes 
and  entering  into  conversation  on  the  subject,  which  we 
have  done  very  often,  and  have  then  left  some  copies  of 
Mr.  Attwood's  address  to  the  French  Nation. 

Yours,  etc., 

Robert  Lowery." 

Urquhart  himself  was  engaged  in  the  diplomatic  circles 
he  knew  so  well.  He  evidently  did  not  find  them  improved 
during  the  five  years  he  had  been  absent  from  them,  judging 
from  the  following  extract  from  his  journal  of  September  4: 

"  I  went  out  with  Mr.  Porter  and  M.  Faucher  to  Auteuil, 
I  had  never  seen  M.  Thiers.  He  received  me  well.  About 
ten  minutes  elapsed  before  dinner  was  announced,  during 
which  he  several  times  came  towards  me,  and  after  a  word 
or  two  went  away  again,  showing  an  anxiety  to  enter  into 
conversation,  and  still  as  if  there  was  something  that 
restrained  him.  I  constantly  found  his  eyes  fixed  upon 
me  when  I  turned.  I  heard  Madame  Thiers  remark  to  Mr. 
Porter,  '  Votre  gouvernement  est  aujourd'hui  tout-a-fait 
Russe.'  I  expected  from  this,  alliance  in  that  quarter.  We 
went  to  dinner  about  a  dozen.  I  was  beside  Madame  Thiers 
and   M.  Thiers  opposite,  found  Madame  Thiers  perfectly 


112  DAVID  URQUHART 

'  inabordable.'  M.  Faucher  was  on  the  other  side,  and  he 
told  me  as  we  sat  down  at  table  that  M.  Thiers  had  asked 
him  if  they  could  not  manage  to  get  me  to  talk  to  them 
about  the  East.  I,  therefore,  thought  that  the  time  of 
dinner  would  be  employed  in  some  degree  usefully.  I 
never  heard  a  conversation  at  a  dinner-table  so  thoroughly 
contemj)tible,  and  took  no  part  in  it  but  a  simple  reply 
when  specially  addressed.  On  retiring  after  dinner  M. 
Thiers  immediately  came  to  me,  but  was  called  off  once 
or  twice  by  the  arrival  of  intelligence  (popular  movements), 
and  finally  led  me  into  a  gallery  where  we  conversed.  Until 
we  got  into  conversation,  whether  after  or  before  dinner, 
1  had  avoided  the  subject;  accepted  none  of  the  openings 
made  by  M.  Thiers  either  as  to  continuing  conversation 
or  as  to  directing  conversation.  I  left  him  the  full  labour 
of  extracthig  every  point,  and  responsibility  of  adopting 
every  subject.  After  dinner  I  think  he  commenced  with 
saying,  with  a  smile:  '  Very  different  is  the  position  of  poor 
Ministers  in  France  to  your  fine  gentlemen  in  England ;  we 
hear  that  a  1  your  Ministers  are  killing  game,  and  that 
there  is  not  one  in  London  ';  and  something  followed  this 
which  pointed  directly  to  Lord  Palmerston. 

"  I  immediately  replied  that  he  had  to  look  to  the  cause 
of  this  different  state  of  things  in  the  great  difference 
between  the  system  of  government  in  England  and  France, 
running  over  the  different  departments  of  Ministers  in 
France,  and  showing  that  nothing  of  the  kind  existed  in 
England,  no  functions  to  perform — for  instance,  Instruction, 
Justice,  Police,  Interior. 

"  M.  Thiers  did  not  seem  to  like  the  tone  I  took,  but  to 
be  interested  with  my  thoughts,  and  said:  '  But  the  Public 
Affairs  of  the  State,  whatever  the  difference  internally, 
require  at  least  some  care  in  England  as  in  France.'  I 
said  that  I  believed  a  great  deal  more  care  had  been  given 
to  these  things  in  England  than  in  France.  An  expression 
of  surprise  led  me  to  distinguish  between  care  and  the 
object  for  which  that  care  was  given,  and  between  interest, 
which  was  general,  and  attention  which  might  be  individual 
I  then  sketched  the  causes  of  the  loss  of  the  sentiment  of 
nationality  in  England,  the  unappreciation  of  every  man 
born  in  England  of  the  commonest  subject  understood  by 
every  Frenchman,  described  the  difference  which  I  felt 
myself  in  Paris  and  in  London,  and  consequently  the 
different  responsibility  attached  to  France  compared  with 
England  from  her  power  of  comprehending,  without  effort 


ASSOCIATIONS  FOR  FOREIGN  AFFAIRS      113 

and  without  assistance,  what  no  unassisted  Englishman 
could  by  any  possibility  comprehend.  Here  he  moved 
towards  the  other  room  and  returned. 

"  He  then  asked  me  in  a  formal  manner  what  I  conceived 
the  opinion  in  England  is,  or  would  be,  in  regard  to  present 
transactions.  I  said:  'The  oi)inion  in  England  is  not 
divided,  it  is  nothing  or  it  is  good — that  is  to  say,  that  the 
mass  of  the  nation  is  wholly  indifferent  and  dead,  and  the 
few  who  are  acting  are  all  acting  in  one  sense.'  He  said: 
'  And  what  will  those  who  are  acting  be  able  to  accom- 
pUsh  ?'  I  said  I  could  not  answer  that  without  taking  a 
given  term,  that  if  the  events  pressed  on  with  rapidity  as 
I  expected  they  would,  that  opinion  in  England  would 
effect  nothing,  but  the  nation  would  be  compromised  and 
committed,  that  whatever  might  be  done  afterwards,  the 
evil  that  would  be  effected  would  be  irrevocable.  I  entered 
then  into  a  general  explanation  in  reference  to  the  estimate 
I  formed  of  the  different  classes  in  England.  I  further  gave 
him  the  conclusions  at  which  I  had  arrived  regarding  the 
danger,  the  cause  of  it,  and  the  means  of  safety.  He  said, 
stopping,  and  with  great  slowness  and  gravity:  '  Be  assured 
that  every  means  within  the  disposition  of  France — ^that 
every  resource  which  she  possesses — that  every  arm  that 
belongs  to  her  will  be  employed  and  will  perish,  before 
France  will  submit  to  the  dishonourable  and  dangerous 
conditions  that  are  sought  to  be  placed  upon  her.'  My 
reply  was  in  the  same  tone :  '  Be  assured  that  all  the  re- 
sources and  power  and  strength  and  energy  of  France  will 
be  of  no  avail.  It  is  not  by  material  means  that  the  danger 
comes,  nor  by  the  arm,  but  by  the  head  that  it  is  to  be 
averted.'  I  then  sketched  the  progress  of  inter-distraction 
between  the  Powers  of  Europe,  the  object  of  Russia  in 
arming  France  for  the  accompUshment  of  her  design.  He 
stopped  a  second  time,  and  after  a  pause,  which  left  me  in 
some  doubt  whether  he  was  preparing  to  oppose  or  to 
assent,  he  said :  '  I  feel  indeed  that  all  our  differences  and 
our  struggles  are  heedless  and  insane,  and  that  a  fearful 
overflow  awaits  Europe.  I  have  often  thought,'  he  added, 
'  that  we  were  much  in  the  position  of  Athens  in  the  face 
of  Philip.'  I  said:  'If  you  feel  that,  these  consequences 
will  not  follow,  no  Minister  of  Athens  dreaded  them.'  At 
this  moment  I  conceived  every  end  within  reach.  It  died 
away — he  followed  nothing  to  a  conclusion,  received  coldly 
my  statement  regarding  the  ignorance  of  the  Pubhc  Men 
of  France  and  his  own  of  matters  without  which  he  could 

8 


114  DAVID  URQUHART 

not  judge  of  the  position  of  England  and  Russia,  conse- 
quently of  the  diplomatic  relations  of  the  world,  and  the 
spirit  of  the  conversation  was  lost  from  that  point  where 
he  had  come  to  the  assertion  of  so  solemn  a  resolution,  as 
if  it  was  a  thing  to  overwhelm  me,  and  when  he  accepted 
my  counter  declaration,  not  feeUng  that  if  he  accepted  it 
the  whole  of  what  he  was  saying  was  vain  and  useless. 
We  returned  after  some  time  to  the  saloon,  where  our  friends, 
I  saw,  were  anxiously  awaiting  the  result.  The  only  answer 
to  the  inquiries  made  me  which  I  gave  was  '  tant  soit  peu 
content.'  He  immediately  after  this  sat  down  in  an  arm- 
chair, and  when  I  observed  him  next  he  was  sound  asleep  !" 

Urquhart  left  nothing  undone  that  might  help  on  his 
designs.  He  conversed  at  much  length  with  M.  Mignet,  the 
historian  of  the  French  Revolution. 

"  I  never  saw  a  man  more  powerful  than  M.  Mignet," 
he  says,  "  in  common-place.  ...  I  can  quite  conceive  that 
any  man  living  enfamille  with  M.  Mignet  must  be  incapable 
of  action.  If  I  Hved  three  days  with  him  I  should  only  be 
fit  for  Bedlam." 

He  visited  the  various  French  Ministers  and  the  diplo- 
matic representatives  of  the  different  countries. 

One  most  interesting  visit,  which  he  describes  at  great 
length,  was  to  M.  Coletti,  the  Greek  Minister,^  who  had 
known  him  in  his  early  days  in  the  East  and  had  the  most 
profound  faith  in  him. 

"  My  sole  hope,"  said  the  old  man  when  he  saw  him, 
"  was  in  England,  knowing  you  were  there,  but  I  had  begun 
to  despair,  because  I  had  expected  long  and  waited  long." 

He  had  an  interview  with  the  agent  of  the  Pasha  of 
Egypt,  Mehemet  Ali: 

"  I  drove  in  the  Bois  de  Boulogne  to  see  M.  Nuber,  whom 
I  found  very  much  restored;  he  detailed  to  me  the  prepara- 
tions for  an  insurrection  in  Asia  Minor,  and  I  concerted 
with  him  that  he  was  immediately  to  write  a  letter  to  the 

^  Coletti  was  Governor  of  Samos  after  the  Greek  War  of  Indepen- 
dence, and  Urquhart  studied  Greece  under  his  guidance.  "  He 
Avas,"  said  he,  "  the  only  man  of  outstanding  merit  whom  the  Greek 
Kevolution  had  produced.  He  was  the  constant  opponent  of  Capo- 
diitras  and  the  Russophile  party." 


ASSOCIATIONS  FOR  FOREIGx\  AFFAIRS      115 

Prime  INIinister  of  the  Porte,  exposing  to  him  his  position, 
and  a  similar  letter  to  Mehemet  Ali.  He  is  to  bring  the 
drafts  of  the  letters  here  on  Sunday  morning;  he  is,  not- 
withstanding the  position  he  occupies,  a  man  who  for  many 
years  has  laboured  in  every  way,  not  merely  to  give  me 
support,  but  to  obtain  for  me  instruction.  He  is  an  Armenian, 
a  brother-in-law  of  Bogos  Bey,  the  Prime  Minister  in  Egyi)t. 
He  thought  he  had  explained  to  himself  the  conduct  of  Lord 
Palmerston,  by  supposing  that  the  object  of  England  in 
this  matter  was  jealousy  of  the  French  navy,  and  to  create 
a  collision  for  its  destruction.  I  had  but  the  day  before 
learnt  the  (if  it  is  possible  to  suppose  one  fact  more  damning 
than  another)  damning  fact,  that  the  augmentation  of  the 
French  navy  in  1836  had  been  at  the  request  of  Lord 
Palmerston.  This  I  mentioned  to  him,  and  he  staggered 
(we  were  walking  at  the  time)  as  if  a  blow  had  been  dealt 
upon  his  breast." 

Urquhart  and  his  party  were,  moreover,  in  constant 
communication  with  M.  Odilon  Barrot,  the  Leader  of  the 
Left  in  the  French  Chamber  under  the  Thiers  Government. 
He  was  entirely  sympathetic,  and  had  several  interviews 
with  the  English  deputation.  He  had  arranged  a  public 
banquet  for  them,  when  the  Thiers  Ministry  fell.  The 
King,  evidently  in  a  panic,  called  M.  Guizot  to  the  Presi- 
dency of  the  Council,  and  the  French  Government  declared 
its  readiness  to  subscribe  the  Treaty  of  July  15.  This  being 
so,  the  danger  of  a  war  was  averted,  and  any  public  demon- 
stration became  inexpedient,  more  especially  if  the  presence 
of  the  deputation  had  been  at  all  concerned  in  the  volte - 
face. 

Though  Urquhart  had  done  his  best  to  avert  a  war  between 
France  and  England,  his  last  wish  was  that  France  should 
meekly  accept  the  Treaty.  "  Her  way  of  escape,"  he  said, 
"  was  not  war,  but  protest." 

"  This,"  said  M.  Odilon  Barrot,  who  was  waited  upon 
by  the  deputation,  accompanied  by  several  members  of  the 
Chamber,  "  would  not  be  appreciated  by  the  people.  If 
any  public  demonstration  took  place,  they  would  not  know 
how  to  distinguish  between  the  sympathy  between  the 
peoples  and  the  impending  alliance  of  the  Governments, 
which  means  dishonour  to  France." 


IIG  DAVID  URQUHART 

The  banquet,  however,  took  place  at  M.  Barrot's  house, 
where  eighty  members  of  the  French  Chamber  met  the 
English  deputation. 

So  ended  the  only  important  piece  of  international  work 
undertaken  by  these  young  committees.  After  1841  they 
gradually  died  out.  Urquhart  probably  felt  discouraged 
in  face  of  the  indifference  which  he  found  everywhere 
prevailing,  and  the  small  headway  he  seemed  able 
to  make  against  it.  His  time  and  attention  were 
taken  up  in  a  thousand  other  directions,  and  he  did  not 
bestow  on  them  the  care  that  such  immature  societies 
needed. 

One  or  two  friends  in  whom  he  placed  confidence  proved 
themselves  unworthy,  and  grossly  mismanaged  the  business 
arrangements  with  which  Urquhart  refused  to  concern  him- 
self. The  missionaries  were  sent  from  town  to  town,  and 
left  there  without  regular  supplies  of  money  being  sent  for 
their  necessary  expenses. 

Heartrending  letters  came  from  the  poor  men,  left  to 
themselves  without  money,  and  anxious  about  wives  and 
families  also  left,  they  much  feared,  in  great  straits.  That  in 
spite  of  such  inconvenience  they  remained  faithful  is  suffi- 
cient proof  how  strong  a  hold  the  cause  had  on  their  minds 
and  affections.  Certainly  there  was  no  pecuniary  induce- 
ment for  their  loyalty,  though  Fergus  O'Connor  accused 
"  the  anti-Russo,  anti-Chartist  "  party  of  trying  to  buy 
off  Chartists  "  at  anything  from  £3  to  £5  a  week."  The 
unsatisfactory  state  of  the  financial  arrangements  of  the 
little  company,  however,  necessitated  the  missionaries 
returning  to  their  daily  labour.  Some  of  them  grew 
despondent  when  the  great  hopes  with  which  the  campaign 
started  seemed  to  fail  and  efforts  relaxed.  Lowery,  writing 
from  Kirkcaldy  in  July,  1841,  says: 

"  After  I  wrote  you  last  I  waited  till  April  in  the  hope 
that  I  would  have  heard  of  some  attempts  of  our  friends 
to  set  themselves  in  motion  on  the  subject  of  foreign  rela- 
tions, but  hearing  nothing  from  the  South  of  Mr.  Urquhart 
coming  northwards,  and  never  having  had  a  line  from  Mr. 
Cardo  or  Mr.  Warden  on  it,  and  from  the  desponding  manner 


ASSOCIATIONS  FOR  FOREIGN  AFFAIRS      117 

in  which  jNIr.  Cargill  spoke,  I  concluded  that  those  arrange- 
ments spoken  of  as  being  intended  had  been  considered 
impracticable,  and  had  been  abandoned." 

]Mr.  Urquhart  himself  says,  writing  in  1850,  of  the  move- 
ment : 

"  The  way  I  pointed  out  has  not  been  walked  in.  I  had 
then  minds  in  action,  but  minds  can  be  brought  into  action, 
or  have  hitherto  at  least  only  been  brought  into  action  by 
vain  speculation.  The  excitement  faiUng,  stoUdity  re- 
turned.    The  convulsion  of  England  was  spared;  that  is  all." 

As  a  matter  of  fact  the  apparent  failing  of  the  movement 
was  just  as  much  due  to  himself  as  its  earliest  success. 
He  did  not  succeed  in  gaining  the  mass  of  the  working  men 
to  his  side,  because  he  was  always  expecting  them  to  see 
things  from  his  point  of  view.  He  never  realised  that  he 
was  up  on  the  heights  and  saw  the  whole  of  Europe,  and 
more  than  Europe,  America  and  the  East  also,  and  that 
therefore  he  could  see  remote  and  far-reaching  causes, 
while  they  could  only  see  those  that  lay  within  their  low 
and  narrow  vision.  He  might  see  that  it  was  international 
injustice  which  was  the  ultimate  cause  of  national  distress, 
that  it  was  England's  subservience  to  Russia  and  arrogance 
to  Turkey  which  made  prices  high  and  wages  low,  but  the 
only  causes  they  could  see  were  the  selfishness  of  the  upper 
and  middle  classes  and  the  Corn  Laws.  He  might  be  able 
to  lay  his  finger  on  the  weak  spot  in  British  Government, 
and  say:  "If  your  Ministers  were  responsible  to  the  King 
and  people  the  danger  of  injustice  would  be  lessened."  They 
only  saw  in  the  King,  as  in  the  Ministers,  the  representative 
of  a  hated  system.  The  Charter  and  Universal  Suffrage, 
class- war  against  an  oppressing  class  bounded  then  vision. 
They  could  see  no  other  way  of  getting  right  and  justice 
done. 

This  point  of  view  Urquhart  not  only  did  not  understand, 
but  would  not  try  to  understand.^  Like  a  prophet  of  old 
he  denounced  it,  unsparingly,  fiercely,  whenever  it  was 
presented  to  him.     To  men  who  came  to  interview  him, 

^  His  position  seems  to  have  been  justified  by  the  eventual  death 
of  the  Chartist  movement. 


118  DAVID  URQUHART 

prepared  to  uphold  it  and  fight  for  it  against  him,  he  would 
have  nothing  to  say.  He  dismissed  them,  often  with  con- 
tumely, always  with  contempt.  These  were  evil  counsels, 
things  that  must  be  put  away  without  compromise.  This 
attitude  of  his,  while  it  increased  the  admiration  of  his 
friends,  gave  enormous  advantage  to  his  enemies,  and 
seriously  restricted  the  number  of  those  who  followed  him. 

He  seized  the  eager,  speculative  and  enthusiastic  minds 
like  Cardo's,  or  the  intelligent  philosophical  lover  of  abstract 
reason  like  Warden;  he  attracted  daring  men  like  Thomason, 
who  guessed  at  ^possibilities  lying  beyond  their  opportunities 
of  knowledge,  by  his  glowing  dreams  of  a  future,  when 
righteousness  and  peace  should  possess  the  earth,  following 
in  the  wake  of  justice,  and  bringing  prosperity  in  their  train. 
He  stimulated  their  intellect  by  his  knowledge  and  intelli- 
gence, he  awakened  their  consciences  by  his  hatred  of  evil, 
he  thrilled  their  imaginations  by  his  glowing  oratory;  the 
strength  of  his  personality  held  them  while  they  were  with 
him,  but  sometimes,  when  they  were  outside  the  magic 
circles  of  his  presence,  they  began  to  see  that  they  had  been 
carried  along  by  him,  and  they  did  not  recognise  the  path 
by  which  they  had  come.  If  they  were  prepared  to  study 
long  and  arduously,  they  generally  found  him  out  to  be 
as  they  said,  "  absolutely  right,"  and  their  admiration 
became  almost  worship.  But  these  were  the  finer  minds. 
The  lesser  ones  often  withdrew  from  him  if  they  were 
sincere,  or  yielded  to  that  subtle  form  of  falsehood,  which  he 
himself  denounced  most  fiercely,  the  profession  of  opinions 
to  which  they  had  not  themselves  arrived.  But  where 
Urquhart  failed  he  failed  grandly.  A  lesser  man  would 
have  met  the  men  on  their  own  grounds  of  Charter  and 
Suffrage,  and  led  them  on.  Not  so  Urquhart.  The  Charter 
and  Suffrage,  he  said,  were  based  on  meanness  and  selfish- 
ness. They  were  just  as  much  party  cries  as  any  Whig  or 
Tory  shibboleths.  He  would  not  use  them  even  for  a  jump- 
ing-off  ground  into  the  deep  seas  of  Liberty  and  Justice. 

He  destroyed  all  he  held  to  be  evil  so  thoroughly  and 
recklessly  that  he  often  tore  down  foundations  on  which 
good  might  have  been  built. 


ASSOCIATIONS  FOR  FOREIGN  AFFAIRS      119 

But  although  the  movement  which  had  begun  with  such 
high  hopes  died  down  for  a  time,  Urquhart's  friends  did  not 
therefore  count  him  to  have  failed.  His  mission  was  too 
high  to  be  within  the  reach  of  failure.  In  their  eyes  he 
could  not  fail  ultimately.  They  were  ready  to  follow  him 
wherever  he  went,  and  to  share  with  him  whatever  came. 
So  it  was  now;  so  it  was  at  the  end  of  a  long  life,  when  to 
Attwood,  Monteith  and  Ross,  as  well  as  to  a  host  of  younger 
disciples,  he  was  still  the  "  Bey  "  of  early  days.  But  then 
he  had  become  also  a  prophet,  for  by  that  time  he  had 
substantiated  in  their  eyes  his  claim  to  be  "  always  right." 

This  passionate,  and  as  it  seems  sometimes,  exaggerated 
worship  of  David  Urquhart  by  his  friends  is  quite  incom- 
prehensible if  we  look  upon  him  as  a  leader  of  a  political 
party.  That  he  never  was.  He  was  always  a  preacher  of 
righteousness;  of  righteousness  where  it  has  been  hitherto 
left  out  by  the  modern  world — i.e.,  in  matters  of  statecraft. 

It  was  as  a  preacher  of  righteousness  that  they  followed 
him.  Whomsoever  he  attached  to  him,  whether  working 
men,  merchants,  women,  Catholic  priests,  he  first  converted. 
Their  entry  into  his  sphere  of  influence  was  like  the  entry 
into  the  Kingdom  of  Heaven;  it  involved  a  new  birth  into 
Justice.  Old  things  must  be  put  away,  henceforth  all 
things  must  become  new. 

Selfish  individualism  in  rehgion,  sloppy  piety,  empty 
formalism  died  away  under  his  teaching,  and  there  rose 
up  in  his  followers  a  sense  of  fellowship,  a  joy  in  the  annihila- 
tion of  self,  and  a  willingness  to  put  aside  any  self-interest 
in  the  common  work  for  the  salvation  of  the  State  and  the 
regeneration  of  mankind. 


CHAPTER  VI 

THE  FORMATION  OF  THE  FOREIGN  AFFAIRS  COMMITTEES 

"  Look  up  !     Look  \ip  ! 
0  Citizen  of  London,  enlarge  thy  countenance. 
0  Jew,  leave  counting  gold  !     Return  to  thy  oil  and  wine. 
0  African  !     Black  African  !     Go,  Winged  Thought,  widen  his 
forehead." 

Blake  :  A  Sovg  of  Liberfy. 

It  was  not  until  1854  that  the  Foreign  Affairs  Committees 
were  revived.  In  1854  also  Urquhart  married,  and  the 
success  which  attended  the  new  Societies  was  in  no 
small  degree  due  to  Mrs.  Urquhart 's  untiring  diligence 
and  gentle  courtesy.  Not  only  did  she  keep  things 
going  when  her  husband's  health  broke  down,  as  it 
constantly  did  beneath  the  strain  of  his  work,  but  she 
smoothed  over  many  difficulties,  soothed  wounded  feelings, 
and  held  to  her  husband's  allegiance  useful  men  whom  his 
faults  of  temper  bade  fair  to  sever  from  it.  She  threw 
herself  into  the  work  with  the  most  entire  self-devotion. 
She  studied,  wrote,  and  interviewed,  spending  strength 
which,  as  the  years  went  by,  she  could  ill  spare  from  the 
cares  of  her  household  and  the  burden  of  an  increasing 
family. 

From  1847  to  1852  David  Urquhart  was  in  Parliament, 
but  his  parliamentary  career  was  only  an  episode  in  his  life. 
Yielding  at  last  to  the  representations  and  entreaties  of 
his  friends,  he  had  consented  to  stand  for  Stafford  as  an 
Independent  Member,  and  was  returned  by  an  overwhelm- 
ing majority.  He  entered  the  House  with  a  scorn  for 
parliamentary  methods,  traditions  and  procedure  which, 
while  it  effectually  secured  him  from  falling  into  the  parlia- 
mentary habit,  at  the  same  time  prevented  his  gaining  or 
wishing  to  gain  either  influence  or  position  in  the  House. 

120 


DAVID   URC^THART 

Shortly  after  his  marriage 


To  face  page  121 


FOREIGN  AFFAIRS  COMMITTEES  121 

His  most  important  speech  was  on  the  Motion  of  Mr. 
Anstey^  for  the  impeachment  of  Lord  Palmerston  as  a 
traitor  to  his  country.  The  Motion  was  naturally  a  fiasco. 
Even  those  Members  of  the  House  who  were  inchned  to 
agree  that  Palmerston  deserved  impeachment  had  too 
much  regard  for  their  political  career  to  admit  it.  Palmer- 
ston himself  affected  supreme  indifference,  but  he  bought 
off  Anstey  by  offering  him  the  appointment  of  Attorney- 
General  of  Hong-Kong. 

Urquhart  did  not  stand  at  the  next  General  Election  in 
1854. 

A  considerable  part  of  the  fourteen  years  which  had 
elapsed  since  his  first  attempt  to  secure  the  co-operation 
of  the  working  men  Urquhart  had  spent  abroad  trying  to 
recover  from  a  severe  attack  of  illness  to  which  he  had  all 
but  succumbed  in  1 84 1 .  He  travelled  leisurely  through  Spain 
and  Morocco,  and  revisited  the  East,  spending  six  months 
in  Mount  Lebanon.  His  book  The  Lebanon  was  the  result 
of  his  sojourn  there. 

The  literary  outcome  of  his  travels  in  Spain  and  in 
Morocco  was  The  Pillars  of  Hercules,  one  of  the  most  in- 
teresting of  his  works.  It  is  a  book  of  travels  interspersed 
with  historical  and  philosophical  research.  In  spite  of  much 
careless  writing,  the  book  is  one  of  great  value,  and  bears 
the  marks  of  an  acute  and  original  mind. 

"  The  narrative  and  descriptive  parts,"  said  William 
Shepperd,^  whose  opinion  Mr.  Urquhart  had  asked,  "  are 
most  striking  and  novel.  The  historical  and  philosophical 
disquisitions  I  consider  one  of  the  most  valuable  con- 
tributions to  modern  literature;  you  have  fallen  upon  the 
great  topics  of  interest  and  curiosity,  the  great  problems 
of  history  to  which  Spain  is  the  key  with  the  Phoenicians 
and  Saracens.  .  .  .  Mr.  Hallam,  Sharon  Turner,  Forster 
and  Bechman  in  his  History  of  Inventors  have  all  touched 
upon  these  subjects,  and  their  data  confirm  your  con- 
clusions, but  you  alone  have  worked  out  this  mine  in  the 
spirit  of  Niehbur,  and  have  thrown  light  upon  and  reduced 
to  order  what  has  hitherto  been  an  historical  chaos." 

^  Member  for  Youghal,  co.  Waterford,  v.  sub.  p.  143  n. 
2  Fellow  of  Oriel  and  Barrister  of  the  Inner  Temple. 


122  DAVID  URQUHART 

The  book  was  successful.  It  would  probably  have  been 
more  so  had  it  not  been  for  its  twofold  character.  His 
reviewers,  favourable  as  they  were,  did  not  understand  his 
point  of  view.  One  thinks  it  "most  extraordinary  that  Mr. 
Urquhart,  whose  books  are  so  full  of  talent  and  originality, 
has  not  succeeded  in  public  life."  "  There  is  good  sense," 
said  the  Daily  News,  whose  review  occupied  two  columns, 
"  in  every  remark  he  makes  till  he  comes  to  politics,  and 
then  he  becomes  at  once  deraisonable.'^ 

But  what,  to  the  British  mind,  was  want  of  common 
sense  to  him  was  fundamental  truth.  It  was  here  that  his 
way  parted  from  that  of  most  of  his  countrymen.  In  the 
unspoilt  countries,  which  Europe  considered  had  been  left 
behind  in  the  march  of  civilisation,  he  found  what  had 
attracted  him  in  the  East — entire  indifference  to  what  the 
West  called  progress,  and  a  simple  adherence  to  primitive 
social  ideals. 

This  condition  of  things  Urquhart  contrasts  in  The 
Pillars  of  Hercules  with  the  national  life  of  modern  European 
States,  particularly  of  England,  who,  like  the  Church  of 
Laodicea  in  the  Apocalypse,  boasting  herself  "  that  she  was 
rich  and  had  need  of  nothing,  knew  not  that  she  was  wretched 
and  miserable  and  poor  and  blind  and  naked." 

"  England  thought  herself  to  be  rich,"  said  Urquhart, 
' '  because  great  masses  of  wealth  were  accumulated  into  the 
hands  of  a  few,  whereas  she  was  poor  in  all  real  wealth  and 
was,  moreover,  smitten  with  the  sore  diseases  of  corruption 
and  blindness.  Material  poverty  matters  little.  A  nation 
may  be  poor  in  gold  and  possessions  and  yet,  like  Spain 
and  India  and  the  East,  in  fact  all  the  countries  where  the 
old  traditions  still  Unger,  may  be  not  only  healthier  but 
richer  than  England." 

Of  the  condition  of  his  own  country  he  took,  indeed,  a 
very  gloomy  view.  She  had  lost  her  self-government.  She 
had  lost,  or  was  fast  losing,  all  noble  and  beautiful  craft. 
Her  industries  were  being  absorbed  by  factories,  and  domestic 
industry  was  either  dying  or  dead. 

"  The  country,"  he  said,  "is  being  run  on  a  system  that 
would  ruin  in  a  year  any  private  estabUshment.     Taxes 


FOREIGN  AFFAIRS  COjVEMITTEES  123 

are  levied  on  industry  and  on  the  necessities  of  life  instead 
of  on  capital.  Credit  is  pledged  in  advance.  The  mass  of 
the  people  are  crushed  by  taxation  and  legislation.  Law 
and  freedom  are  ahke  dead ;  and  everyone  hf ts  up  his  hands 
and  praises  our  noble  civiUsation.  .  .  .  Matters  that  are 
of  the  most  vital  importance  to  every  member  of  the  com- 
munity involving  issues  of  peace  and  war  which  mean  the 
prosperity  and  life  or  the  misery  and  death  of  millions 
are  entirely  withdrawn  from  the  control  of  those  whom 
they  most  nearly  concern,  and  are  decided  in  secret  by, 
at  most,  two  or  three  highly  placed  officials  responsible  to 
no  one  for  their  mistakes  or  crimes."^ 

This  was,  in  Urquhart's  eyes,  the  crowning  evil  of  the 
State,  and  in  the  Crimean  War  he  saw  it  materialised. 
The  saihng  of  the  Alhed  Fleets  to  the  Bosphorus  was  the 
direct  result  of  the  secret  diplomacy  which  he  traced  from 
the  proposal  of  the  Czar  Nicholas  to  Lord  Aberdeen  for  the 
partition  of  Turkey,  through  the  conversations  in  which 
again  and  again  the  same  proposal  was  made  to  successive 
Prime  Ministers,  with  the  final  offer  of  Egypt  and  Candia 
to  England  as  her  share  of  the  booty,  to  the  climax  of 
March,  1854,  when  the  war  for  which  Russia  had  so  long 
plotted  at  length  broke  out,  "  because,"  said  Urquhart, 
"  she  was  ready  for  it." 

"Is  it  conceivable,"  he  asks,  "  that  if  Sir  Hamilton 
Seymour's  despatches  of  January,  1853,  had  been  read  at 
the  Council-table  to  an  assemblage  of  selected  pubhc  men 
of  all  parties  that  the  English  Ambassador  at  St.  Peters- 
burg would  not  have  been  instructed  to  return  a  reply  far 
different  to  that  sent  ?" 

A  war  of  ignorance  or  coUusion  according  to  Disraeli, 
it  was,  in  Urcjuhart's  eyes,  one  of  ignorance  and  collusion.^ 

^  This  passage  occurs  in  a  private  letter,  but  it  is  in  substance 
constantly  repeated  in  Urquhart's  writings.  His  social  creed  was 
most  fully  stated  in  a  lecture  delivered  at  the  Philosophical  Society 
of  Portsmouth,  March,  1845,  on  "'Pauperism  and  its  Cure."  It  was 
afterwards  published  as  a  pamphlet,  under  the  title  of  Wealth  and 
Want. 

2  Lord  Ponsonby — Letters  on  the  Eastern  Question,  Brighton,  1 854 — 
is  quite  at  one  with  Urquhart  on  the  lolly  of  pretending  to  aid  the 
Turks,  who  were  perfectly  able  to  defend  themselves  against  the 


124  DAVID  URQUHART 

The  collusion  would  not  have  been  possible  but  for  the 
ignorance,  and  it  was  ignorance  which,  both  before  its  out- 
break and  during  its  course,  he  faithfully  endeavoured  to 
dispel. 

Before  the  appointment  of  the  Sevastopol  Commission 
he  pointed  out  the  imbecility  of  landing  British  troops  at 
a  port  of  no  value,  and  which  they  could  not  hold,  on  the 
wrong  side  of  the  fort  and  exposed  to  all  the  enemy's  fire, 
while  they  left  unassailed  the  Port  of  Odessa,  so  important 
for  Russian  trade,  which,  thanks  to  the  surrender  by  the 
Allies  of  their  maritime  rights,  was  uninterrupted.  Most 
of  the  disasters  of  that  disastrous  war,  he  maintained,  were 
due  to  secret  diplomacy.  Had  its  conduct  been  in  the 
hands  of  the  Privy  Council,  assembled  in  the  constitutional 
manner  by  the  Queen,  Lord  Palmerston's  proposal  to 
attack  Sevastopol  would  instantly  have  been  met  by  the 
questions : 

"Why  select  that  port?"  "Why  not  blockade  the 
Russian  ports  and  so  destroy  her  trade  ?"  "Why  do  you 
select  a  strong  fortress,  from  which  no  hostile  expedition 
has  ever  sailed  ?"  "  And  why  do  you  leave  unassailed  the 
emporium  Odessa,  which  has  always  been  the  base  of  her 
operations  ?"  "  Why,  if  you  propose  to  attack  Sevastopol, 
did  you  not  propose  this  before  that  fortress  was  reinforced 
by  the  army  retreating  from  Silistria  ?"  "And  why  did 
you  not  propose  to  occupy  the  Isthmus  of  Perekop,  and  so 
cut  off  the  reinforcing  army  ?"  Fifty  other  questions 
would  have  been  asked;  and  that  most  ignoble,  most  use- 
less, and  most  ghastly  destruction  of  our  army  in  the  trenches 
never  would  have  taken  place. 

It  was  in  order  that  the  nation  might  not  be  wholly 
destitute  of  those  prepared  to  ask  such  questions  that 
Urquhart  set  himself  to  reorganise  the  Foreign  Affairs 
Committees  in  1854. 

He  began  in  Newcastle,  as  he  wrote  some  years  after- 
Russians.  "  I  am  sure,"  he  says,  "  that  if  the  Turks  are  drawn 
in  to  trust  England  they  will  ultimately  be  ruined. 

"  Let  the  Allies,  as  they  call  themselves,  leave  it  to  Turkey  and 
Russia  to  fight  the  battle  out.  The  Turks  will  win.  They  will 
not  be  defeated  by  Russia." 


FOREIGN  AFFAIRS  COMMITTEES  125 

wards  to  the  French  social  reformer  M.  Le  Play,  with  a 
Committee  of  three,  "  a  blacksmith,  a  carpenter  and  a 
bhnd  beggar."  But  its  numerical  weakness  and  social 
insignificance  was  more  than  compensated  for  by  the 
keenness  and  intelligence  of  its  members.  Their  discussions 
and  questions  along  with  Urquhart's  answers  he  afterwards 
embodied  in  a  pamphlet  called  Constitutional  Remedies, 
which  served  as  a  textbook  for  other  Committees. 

The  Committees  spread  rapidly  from  town  to  town. 
Urquhart  devoted  a  whole  year  entirely  to  their  organisa- 
tion. They  were  for  the  most  part  composed  of  working 
men,  though  in  some  of  them  we  find  merchants,  shop- 
keepers and  labourers,  working  side  by  side.  In  each 
town  he  collected,  with  the  help  of  friends,  a  few  men 
gained  either  by  an  appeal  to  "  their  curiosity,  their  intel- 
ligence, or  their  passions."  He  introduced  them  to  the 
study  of  Vattel,  of  his  own  or  Anstey's  pamphlets  on  their 
own  Constitution,  on  the  East,  and  on  Russia,  together 
with  Blue  Books  and  parliamentary  documents  relating  to 
their  own  times.  As  the  Committees  grew,  he  watched  them 
carefully,  and  from  them  he  selected  a  few  men  to  undergo 
for  three  months  a  more  special  course  of  study. 

"  After  having,"  he  says  in  a  letter  to  M.  Le  Play,  "  dining 
the  autumn  of  1854  travelled  all  through  England  holding 
in  each  town  meetings  which  varied  from  fifty  to  sixteen 
hundred  people,  I  made  choice  of  the  most  able  men,  and 
brought  sixty  of  them  together  at  Manchester.  They  were 
there  for  three  months.  During  that  time  we  had  many 
public  meetings,  and  made  excursions  to  the  neighbouring 
towns,  but  the  object  of  bringing  together  these  men,  those 
keen  and  stirring  spirits  of  the  working  class,  was  study. 
They  were  divided  into  sections,  and  their  studies  were 
directed  by  those  who  had  already  worked  with  me.  They 
assembled  at  ten  o'clock  in  the  morning,  and  all  passed 
through  the  same  course  of  lectures  on  the  Law  of  Nations 
and  the  Constitution  of  England.  Then  they  divided  into 
sej)arate  branches  of  these  subjects,  such  as  the  Treaty  of 
May,  1852,  the  Chinese  and  Afghan  Wars,  Maritime  Law, 
the  Commercial  Treaty  with  Turkey,  the  Corn  Supply,  the 
Holy  Alliance,  Poland,  etc.  The  hours  of  work  were  from 
ten  in  the  morning  till  one  o'clock  for  dinner.     They  re- 


126  DAVID  URQUHART 

sumed  work  at  two  o'clock  and  went  on  till  seven,  when  they 
stopped  for  tea.  At  eight  o'clock  all  met  in  the  same  room, 
and  I  discussed  with  them  for  never  less  than  two  hours 
the  topics  on  which  they  had  been  at  work  through  the 
day.  These  men,  grave,  diligent,  enthusiastic,  were  a  sight 
worth  seeing.  At  the  end  of  three  months  there  was  a 
pubUc  meeting  to  which  prominent  statesmen,  lawyers 
and  ecclesiastics  were  invited.  Some  accepted  the  office  of 
judges.  The  men  were  questioned  first  by  one,  then  by  all 
who  were  there.  The  most  able  of  the  sixty  were  chosen 
to  form  a  deputation  to  London  to  treat  with  the  members 
of  both  Houses  of  the  Treaty  of  Denmark  and  the  Right 
of  Search.  It  was  on  that  occasion  that  Lord  Hardwicke's 
famous  remark,  so  often  quoted,  was  made :  '  You  are  not 
working  men  but  statesmen,  or  rather,  you  are  what  states- 
men would  be  if  we  had  any.' 

"  But  it  was  not  study  alone  by  which  such  results  were 
obtained.  It  was  by  training  also.  I  put  myself  in  the 
place  of  such  and  such  a  public  man,  and  I  made  them 
come  and  make  known  their  wishes.  Then  I  rephed  as 
Mr.  Bright  would  have  replied,  or  Mr.  Cobden,  or  any  other 
of  our  enemies,  Whig  or  Tory.  Then  I  made  them  change 
places,  taking  myself  that  of  the  deputation.  After  their 
training,  the  deputations  to  London,  of  which  there  were 
many,  gave  them  insight.  But  for  that  all  would  have 
been  in  the  air.  After  having  seen  the  men  who  from 
afar  had  seemed  to  them  so  great  and  so  strong,  they  under- 
stood the  words  of  Demosthenes :  '  It  is  for  the  least  among 
us  to  save  the  State;  for  the  great  have  neglected  their 
duty.'  " 

Urquhart's  method  was  always  to  deal  with  the  indi- 
vidual as  a  whole  man.  It  was  not  enough  for  him  to  gain 
the  intellectual  assent  of  a  man  to  his  opinions.  The  very 
word  "  opinion  "  was  anathema  to  him.  Man  was  put 
into  the  world  to  exercise  his  judgment,  and  a  right  judg- 
ment depended  on  character.  The  man  must  be  real 
through  and  through.  He  must  wish  to  be  right  not  to 
appear  to  be  right.  That  was  self-love,  and  self-love  was 
one  of  the  deepest  passions  of  the  human  heart.  Nothing 
could  be  done  with  a  man  until  that  was  ehminated. 

It  was  the  first  point  that  Urquhart  attacked.  And  it 
was  here  that  his  hardest  struggles  took  place.     Until  they 


FOREIGN  AFFAIRS  COMMITTEES  127 

met  with  him  his  disciples  looked  upon  their  private 
character  and  thought  as  something  entirely  apart  from 
their  poHtical  and  private  ambitions. 

What,  for  instance,  had  the  passing  of  the  Reform  Bill 
or  Universal  Suffrage  to  do  with  a  man's  sincerity  of  thought 
or  right  use  of  words  ?  "  Everything,"  said  Urquhart. 
Sincerity  of  thought  meant  that  people  would  really  wish 
to  find  out  what  was  for  the  good  of  their  country,  and 
would  be  ready  to  lay  aside  any  theory  or  plan,  however 
cherished,  which  could  be  proved  to  be  inimical  to  it.  And 
sincerity  of  thought  could  only  be  reached  in  England  by 
a  return  to  the  careful  use  of  words — to  a  knowledge  of 
their  true  meaning. 

The  age  was  corrupt ;  its  speech  insincere ;  its  reason  per- 
verted by  self-love.  Before  a  man  could  be  of  real  use  he 
must  be  taken  out  of  his  age;  he  must  put  aside  the  self 
that  his  age  had  produced  and  become  his  true  self;  he 
must  repudiate  current  modes  of  thought;  he  must  use 
words  and  phrases  in  their  true  meaning,  and  he  must 
renounce  abstractions  of  every  kind.  The  man  who  gave 
himself  up  to  Urquhart 's  guidance  was  often  brought  to 
himself  by  a  great  shock.  He  was  shown  that  he  had 
nothing  that  could  be  called  knowledge,  that  he  was  bUndly 
following  pubUc  opinions,  that  his  theories  were  based  on 
falsehood,  that  the  Promised  Land,  to  which  by  way  of 
Suffrage,  Corn  Laws,  and  such-Uke  paths,  he  was  journey- 
ing was  a  mirage  in  a  barren  wilderness,  that  the  road  to 
promised  lands  was  never  by  such  easy  paths  as  these,  but 
by  rocky  roads  up  the  steep  mountain-sides  of  self -discipline 
and  knowledge. 

If  he  could  bear  the  sight,  if  he  turned  and  admitted  his 
mistake,  Urquhart  spared  no  pains  to  show  him  the  right 
way  and  to  keep  him  in  it.  He  was  set  to  study,  to  learn 
the  law  that  should  guide  nations  in  their  relations  with 
each  other,  to  study  the  events  of  the  time  and  the  actions 
of  Governments  in  the  light  of  that  law. 

He  was  taught  that  the  spirit  of  his  age,  which  called 
itself  Progress,  was  Retrogression.  All  the  measures  by 
which  his  fellow-countrymen  thought  they  had  advanced, 


128  DAVID  URQUHART 

had  served  only  to  deprive  them  of  the  constitutional 
liberty  which  had  belonged  to  their  forefathers.  The 
Reform  Bill,  by  which  the  working  classes  thought  they  had 
gained  a  share  in  the  Government,  had  resulted  in  greatly 
increased  taxation.  It  had  given  them  a  right  to  elect  their 
masters,  but  it  had  made  their  servitude  more  complete. 

This  Urquhart  pointed  out  with  great  force  in  the  hand- 
book Constitutional  Remedies,  whose  object  was  to  show 
that  while  the  Law  was  intended  to  control  the  actions  of 
the  Government,  modern  Governments  were  tending  to 
become  more  and  more  centralised  into  what  was  not  only 
an  "  oligarchical  usurpation,"  taking  away  from  the  people 
the  control  they  had  in  former  days  over  their  domestic 
affairs,  but  was  depriving  them  of  set  purpose  of  all  know- 
ledge of  Foreign  Affairs.  He  entered  into  an  explanation 
of  the  various  institutions  of  Mediaeval  England  from  the 
Privy  Council,  through  which  the  Royal  functions  were 
exercised,  to  the  Courts  Leet,  showing  how  it  was  possible 
for  these  Courts  of  the  humblest  citizens  to  set  the  Law  in 
motion  by  moving  the  Shire  Courts  to  move  the  King's 
Council.  He  pointed  out  that  the  only  safeguard  of  a 
State,  whether  monarchical  or  democratic,  was  that  the 
people  should  retain  and  be  determined  to  retain  knowledge 
of  their  own  affairs,  foreign  as  well  as  domestic.  He  urged 
on  the  Committee-men  to  work  as  he  had  always  done  for 
the  abolition  of  the  Cabinet,  whose  growth  and  illegal  usurpa- 
tion of  authority  he  traced  from  the  Cabal  of  Charles  II., 
on  through  the  reign  of  William  and  Mary  to  its  full 
development  under  the  Hanoverians.  There  could  be  no 
security  for  the  nation  with  the  Government  in  the  hands 
of  a  secret  Committee.  He  urged  them  to  work  for  the 
restoration  of  the  old  Privy  Council.  How  ?  they  said. 
And  Urquhart's  answer  is  the  key  to  all  his  teaching.  "  By 
your  own  knowledge,  your  own  sincerity,  your  own  con- 
victions. You  can  reach  the  convictions  of  other  men  only 
through  your  own." 

"If  you  are  convinced,"  he  said,  in  effect,  "that  as  a 
nation  you  are  in  a  state  of  sin,  that  you  are  weakly  and 
like  cowards  shelving  responsibility,  because  the  power  of 


FOREIGN  AFFAIRS  COMMITTEES  129 

government  has  been  usurped  by  a  faction,  you  will  con- 
vince others.  But  if  you  hold  it  only  as  a  political  opinion, 
as  a  catchword  to  awaken  interest,  you  will  fail.  Perhaps 
not  at  first,  for  opinions  and  shibboleths  in  a  corrupt  state 
of  society  have  more  power  than  honest  conviction,  and 
seem  to  override  it.  But  ultimately  the  idea  will  die, 
because  it  is  founded  on  nothing:  it  has  no  root  or  depth 
of  earth  in  which  to  grow.  A  truth  is  a  truth,  and  must 
win  its  way.  If  this  thing  is  true,  and  you  are  true,  it  will 
win  its  way  through  you.  If  you  are  not  true  it  will  win 
its  way  in  spite  of  you.  Therefore  we  return  to  the  starting 
point:  all  depends  on  character." 

At  the  root  of  Urquhart's  teaching  lay  a  deep  belief  in 
human  nature,  in  the  power  of  man  to  be  right.  He  sweeps 
away  every  idea  that  man  is  bound  to  be  wrong.  Indolence 
and  indifference  are  the  parents  of  such  theories.  Man  in 
himself  is  a  being  with  dispositions  towards  good,  besieged 
in  his  inmost  citadel  by  a  foe,  call  it  what  you  will;  Urquhart 
called  it  the  Spirit  of  the  Age.  From  that  spirit  the  man 
must  free  himself.  Then  he  can  think  truly,  judge  justly, 
act  rightly.  You  must  not  judge  man  by  what  he  actually 
is,  you  must  think  of  his  undeveloped  powers,  those  powers 
to  which  our  Lord  referred  when  He  said:  "  Be  ye  therefore 
perfect."  You  must  believe  in  the  possibiUty  of  fulfilling 
that  command,  and  along  with  your  contempt  for  the  man 
as  he  is  and  for  yourself,  in  so  far  as  you  resemble  him, 
you  must  have  the  deepest  love  and  respect  for  man  as  he 
might  be.  For  man  is  greater  than  his  conception  of 
himself. 

There  is  in  this  doctrine  no  room  left  for  indolence,  no 
truce  with  human  weakness.  Man  is  meant  to  rise  above 
human  weakness.  Things  are  not  to  remain  wrong  because 
we  find  them  wrong.  "Never  allow  yourself  to  think  of 
what  is,  until  you  have  thought  of  what  ought  to  be." 
This  applied,  said  Urquhart,  both  to  man  as  an  individual 
and  to  communities. 

The  possibilities  which  such  a  doctrine  opened  up  to 
those  who  could  receive  it  were  illimitable.  It  took  the 
working  men  out  of  theii-  narrow  hves,  conditioned  by 
sordid  circumstances,  out  of  the  corruption  and  rottenness 

9 


130  DAVID  URQUHART 

of  politics,  out  of  the  evils  of  the  social  state  and  set  them 
in  a  Utopia,  wherein  they  were  pure  and  just  dwellers  in 
a  perfect  state.  No  wonder  that  with  heart  and  mind  they 
worked  for  such  a  consummation.  Urquhart  was,  from  his 
first  contact  with  the  working  classes,  against  everything 
which  as  a  class  they  desired.  He  despised  the  Charter, 
he  waved  aside  Reform  Bills,  to  the  Corn  Laws  he  would 
have  nothing  to  say.  All  legislation,  even  the  Factory 
Bills,  he  described  as  perfectly  useless,  if  not  actually 
harmful,  a  mere  treatment  of  symptoms.  Yet  the  working 
men  whom  he  attracted  he  held,  his  system  wrought  a  com- 
plete change  in  their  character,  and  they  worked,  even  as 
he  did,  for  the  conversion  of  others. 

Amongst  his  disciples  were  those  who  had  found  the 
Charter  useless;  members  of  the  O'Brienite  National 
Reform   League,    Stephens,   the   old   Ciiartist   leader,^   ad- 

1  Karl  Marx  was  also  a  convinced  adherent  of  Urquhart  in  his 
views  on  Eussia  and  the  East,  and  in  his  execra,tion  of  Lord  Pal- 
merston's  policy.  Both  were  agreed  in  detestation  of  modern  com- 
mercial and  financial  transactions,  though  their  policy  for  remedying 
them  was  so  different. 

Spargo,  in  his  Life  of  Karl  Marx,  says:  "  Marx  gladly  co-operated 
with  David  Urquhart  and  with  his  followers  in  their  anti-Kussian 
campaign,  for  he  regarded  Russia  as  the  leading  reactionary  Power 
in  the  world,  and  never  lost  an  opportunity  of  expressing  his  hatred 
for  it.  In  David  Urquhart  he  found  a  kindred  soul  to  whom  he 
became  greatly  attached.  .  .  .  The  influence  which  David  Urqu- 
hart obtained  over  Marx  was  remarkable.  Marx  probably  never 
relied  upon  the  judgment  of  another  man  as  he  did  upon  that  of 
Urquhart.  Nor  was  Marx  the  only  German  of  note  who  ackriow- 
ledged  Urquhart's  leadeiship.  Lothair  Bucher,  later  the  friend 
and  literary  executor  of  Lassalle,  and  the  a^.ter  ego  of  Bismarck,  was 
another  ardent  disciple." 

In  his  Story  and  Life  of  Palmer ston,  Karl  Jiarx  writes: 

"  This  is  a  fitting  occasion  to  give  his  due  to  Mr.  David  Urquhart, 
the  indefatigable  antagonist  for  twenty  years  of  Lord  Palmerston, 
to  whom  he  proved  a  real  antagonist — one  not  to  be  intimidated 
into  silence,  bribed  into  connivance,  charmed  into  suitorship;  while, 
what  with  cajoleries,  what  with  seductions,  Palmerston  contrived 
to  change  all  other  foes  into  friends." 

Strange  to  find  in  the  founder  of  "Doctrinaire  Socialism"  an 
admirer,  almost  a  disciple,  of  so  passionate  an  upholder  of  Law  as 

Urquhart  ! 

Lothair  Bucher,  who  had  fled  for  his  life  from  Germany,  having 
been  sentenced  to  death  as  a  Repiiblican,  became  a  devoted  disciple 
of  Urquhart's. 

After  studying  his  writings  and  much  oral  instruction,  his  ad- 
heren-ce  to  his  master  was  completed  by  the  accidental  discovery  of 


FOREIGN  AFFAIRS  COMMITTEES  131 

herents  of  secularist  and  atheist  clubs,  who  found  their 
way  back  to  religion,  some  even  to  the  Cathohc  Church, 
by  way  of  Justice  and  Law.  One  such  wrote  nearly  twenty 
years  later  a  touching  account  of  his  first  meeting  with 
David  Urquhart : 

"  In  the  month  of  August,  1857,  twenty -one  men  were 
assembled  in  a  room  over  a  grocer's  shop  in  the  market- 
place of  this  town  (Preston).  Twenty  of  them  were  Secu- 
larists (Atheists),  the  other  a  Swedenborgian.  I  was  one 
of  the  number,  being  an  Atheist,  and  the  Secretary  of  tlie 
Society.  It  was  a  Monday  night,  I  liad  learnt  during  the 
day  that  Mr.  Urquhart  was  to  be  in  the  town  that  night. 
When  the  discussion  whether  a  God  existed  or  not  was 
about  to  commence,  I  got  up  and,  mentioning  Mr.  Urquhart 
being  in  the  town,  stated  as  I  had  read  in  infidel  literature 
that  he  was  an  enemy  to  the  freedom  of  the  Press,  opposed 
to  both  suffrage  and  ballot,  opposed  to  progress  and  reform, 
and  that  it  seemed  to  me  that  we  ought  all  to  go  and  take 
him  to  task  and  crucify  him.  They  all  agreed,  and  we  set 
off  in  a  body,  exulting  on  the  way  at  the  prospect  of  our 
success. 

"  The  picture  in  my  mind  of  Mr.  Urquhart  before  I  saw 
him  was  that  of  an  ugly  wrinkled  man  with  a  long  beard 
and  a  stupid  expression  of  countenance.  When  v/e  got 
into  the  large  room  where  he  was  and  arranged  ourselves, 

an  almost  forgotten  book  on  The  Policy  of  Etiropean  Gahinetn. 
There  were  scarcely  any  copies  to  be  found  in  European  libraries 
because,  as  Bucher  discovered,  Eussia  had  bought  them  all  up. 

Thereupon  Herr  Bucher  wrote  a  series  of  articles  to  the  Gorman 
papers  which  set  all  Germany  by  the  ears. 

"  In  every  beer-shop  and  tavern,"  says  Edward  Fischel,  "  most 
energetic  controversies  were  carried  on  respecting  the  letters  of 
Bucher." 

"  These  articles  in  which  the  English  Ministers  were  represented 
as  the  accomplices  of  Eussia  caused  the  greatest  excitement.  .  .  . 
To  one  party  Herr  Bucher  seemed  like  a  Bedlamite,  or  a  hypochon- 
driac, while  to  the  other  he  apj^eared  as  the  unshrinking  champion 
of  Truth." 

For  whatever  cause,  however,  it  was  worth  Bismarck's  while  to 
stop  Bucher's  pen.  He  was  bought  off;  nothing  was  said  about  the 
sentence  of  death  passed  upon  him  in  1848. 

He  returned  to  Germany  as  Bismarck's  secretary,  and  soon  became 
known  as  the  only  person  fully  in  the  great  Chancellor's  confidence. 

"  He  is  a  sort  of  '  Frere  Joseph,'  "  said  the  Berlin  correspondent 
of  the  Pali-Mall  Gazette,  "  notorious  as  the  only  man  who  has  his 
master's  full  confidence,  and  as  much  hated  as  he  is  dreaded." 


132  DAVID  URQUHART 

sitting  in  a  semi-circle  before  him,  I  began  to  feel  uneasy. 
The  picture  of  him  in  my  mind  was  false.  He  was  not  old, 
nor  ugly,  nor  wrinkled,  nor  stupid-looking.  His  eye  was 
steady,  clear  and  fearless,  and  there  was  an  expression 
on  his  face  that  seemed  to  say  that  he  knew  us,  and  meant 
to  turn  us  inside  out.  When  we  asked  him  if  he  would 
help  us  to  get  votes  he  said  he  would  help  us  to  get  know- 
ledge, and  asked  us  if  we  would  give  a  child  a  razor.  .  .  . 

"  Mr.  Urquhart,  in  the  course  of  his  remarks,  spoke  on 
the  necessity  of  friendship  between  England  and  France, 
and  had  been  giving  some  instances  of  how  the  peace 
between  the  two  countries  had  been  endangered  by  diplo- 
matic means.  My  friend,  the  Swedenborgian,  began:  '  But 
don't  you  think  that  the  amount  of  trade  that  is  done 
between  England  and  France  will  be  a  great  security  for 
the  peace  of  the  two  countries ;  that  France  buying  so  much 
from  England  and  selling  so  much  to  England  must  have 
the  effect  of  cementing  the  peace  of  the  two  countries  V 

"  The  answer  of  Mr.  Urquhart  was  terrible,  at  least  to 
me  at  the  time.  .  .  .  The  point  in  his  denunciation  that 
was  the  most  powerful  was  the  showing  that  the  Sweden- 
borgian's  union  of  nations  was  a  mere  question  of  huckster- 
ing, buying  and  selling,  and  not  the  basing  the  relations 
of  England  and  France  on  justice,  without  which  man 
cannot  even  buy  and  sell.  I  saw  all  this  when  Mr.  Urquhart 
burst  out  with  the  indignant  words,  '  You  huckster  !  you 
shopkeeper  ! '  and  advanced  to  the  man  with  clenched  hands 
and  set  teeth,  and  called  him  blind,  and  said  that  he  and 
those  hke  him  were  the  leaders  of  the  people.  He  spoke 
to  us  of  India,  telHng  us  what  was  coming  even  then.  But 
it  is  rather  the  effect  on  myself  than  the  actual  words  that 
I  remember  now.  My  eyes  were  not  only  opened,  but 
opened  very  wide.  I  looked  on  my  past  life  as  a  blank, 
and  from  that  hour  to  this  I  have  made  some  endeavour 
to  redeem  the  past.  I  have  generally  found  some  few 
men  to  work  with  me.  First  of  all  we  got  five  of  the  mem- 
bers who  heard  Mr.  Urquhart,  and  shortly  after  the  Secular 
or  Atheistic  Society  broke  up." 

WiUiam  Singleton,  the  writer  of  this  letter,  worked  his 
way  from  the  Atheistical  Society  to  the  Catholic  Church. 
But  the  beginning  of  good  to  him  was  this  interview  with 
Mr.  Urquhart,  when  the  fierce  denunciations  which  seemed 
calculated  to  repel  drew  the  finer  spirits  to  him.     This  was 


FOREIGN  AFFAIRS  COMMITTEES  133 

part  of  Urquhart's  method.  "  There  is  no  art  I  have 
practised  so  assiduously  as  the  faculty  of  making  men  hate 
me,"  he  says.  "  That  removes  apathy.  You  can  get 
them  into  speech.  Then  you  have  their  words  to  catch 
and  hurl  back  at  them  to  luiock  them  down  with." 

Many  distinguished  men  bear  witness  to  the  success  of 
his  method. 

"It  is  you,"  said  Pere  Gratry,  on  being  introduced  to 
him,  "  who  tamed  the  democracy  of  England."  Lothair 
Bucher  profited  by  Urquhart's  knowledge  of  diplomacy,  if 
not  by  his  principles.  Dr.  Fischel  used  what  he  had  taught 
him  in  his  work  on  the  Constitutional  History  of  England. 
]Mr.  A.  G.  Stapleton,^  who  spent  a  day  with  one  of  the 
Committees,  was  overwhelmed  with  the  men's  knowledge 
and  high  moral  standard. 

"  There  is  nothing  these  men  did  not  know  on  inter- 
national relations;  all  the  treaties  and  their  stipulations, 
on  what  occasions  they  were  made,  how  they  had  been 
carried  out,  all  their  bearings  as  affecting  the  past,  and 
their  probable  effect  on  the  future,  were  dealt  with  as  if 
they  had  spent  their  lives  in  the  Foreign  Office.  Every 
point  of  our  Foreign  Policy  was  dealt  with,  and  they  showed 
equal  knowledge  on  all. 

"  The  object  for  which  these  men  had  banded  themselves 
together  was  of  the  noblest.  ...  '  Su','  they  said,  address- 
ing me  over  and  over  regain  in  the  course  of  the  discussion, 
to  which  they  came  in  their  dinner-hour  in  working  clothes 
and  arms  all  stained  with  the  indigo  they  were  using  for 
their  dyes,  '  our  object  is  to  compel  our  Government  to 
re-establish  the  reign  of  Law.'  Such  was  the  lofty  ideal 
which  filled  the  minds  of  these  lowly  mechanics.  I  retired 
from  the  conference  with  mingled  feelings  of  amazement 
and  dehght,  and  thought  that  no  one  need  despair  of 
England's  fate  while  such  men  formed  a  portion  of  her 
people."^ 

John  Stuart  Mill  had  an  equally  high  opinion  of  their 
character  and  aims.  He  called  Urquhart's  disciples  "  the 
elite  of  the  people  of  England."  He  told  a  deputation  of 
worldng  men  who  came  to  interview  him  that  he  had  been 

^  The  intimate  friend  and  biograplier  of  George  Canning. 
2  A.  G.  Stai^lctoii,  A  Datj  ivilh  One  of  the  CommiUee)). 


134  DAVID  URQUHART 

a  college  friend  of  Urquhart's  in  their  youth.  They  had 
then  had  antithetical  views  on  most  matters,  but  now  there 
were  few  subjects  on  which  he  did  not  agree  with  him. 

After  reading  with  great  appreciation  a  letter  of  David 
Rule,  a  Newcastle  plasterer  and  plumber,  he  remarked  that 
the  most  gratifying  thing  about  David  Urquhart's  work 
was  "  the  development  of  mind  among  the  working  classes." 

It  must  be  remembered  that  Urquhart  chose  out  for 
treatment  the  best  of  the  working  men. 

"  Do  not  waste  your  time  upon  inferior  men,"  he  said 
to  a  meeting  of  his  working-men  disciples ;  ' '  you  must  find 
a  certain  amount  of  natural  intellectual  power  to  make  a 
man  worth  talking  to.  If  a  man  is  not  simple  and  child- 
like so  as  to  have  escaped  the  fallacies  of  his  age,  he  must 
have  a  mind  capable  of  sufficient  intellectual  effort  to 
grapple  with  them." 

It  is  not  possible  to  read  the  records  of  the  men  of  the 
Foreign  Affairs  Committees  without  contrasting  them  with 
the  working  men  of  to-day,  rather,  it  must  be  admitted,  to 
the  disadvantage  of  the  latter. 

Those  men,  without  half  the  advantages  of  the  working 
men  of  our  own  times,  seem  to  have  been,  in  character  and 
morale,  head  and  shoulders  above  them.  They  had  no 
education  except  what  they  got  for  themselves.  They  had 
been  put  to  work  at  a  barbarously  early  age.  Their  hours 
of  work  were  long,  often  twelve  hours  a  day.  Their  food 
was  dear  and  of  very  poor  quaUty.  Their  homes  were  un- 
sanitary, often  mere  hovels.  There  were  no  working-men's 
clubs.  Books  and  papers  were  dear,  cheap  editions  almost 
unknown.  The  state  of  labour  was  disturbed.  Wages  were 
low  and  unemployment  common.  But  the  leading  note  in 
the  men  of  the  Committees  was  self-forgetfulness  and 
devotion  to  the  cause  of  their  country.  During  the  American 
Civil  War,  the  time  of  the  Committees'  greatest  activities, 
quite  half  the  mills  in  the  cotton  districts  were  closed,  and 
the  rest  were  on  half  time.  Three  and  sixpence  a  week  was 
a  common  wage  for  a  family. 

Yet,  in  spit 3  of  their  own  sufferingo,  the  men  of  the 
Foreign  Affairs  Committees  signed  and  took  round  petitions 


RECOGNITION 


OF  THE 


**  Yoa  have  forgot  tb«  la«rs  aod  the  traditions  of  your  Fathers.**    M^emosihenes  to  the  Athenian*. 

«<  A  Aeutral  natioD  desirous  safely  to  enjoy  the  conveniences  of  that  state,  Isio  all  things  to  shew  an  exact  Impartiality  b«tweeo 
the  parties  at  war.**    Vattets  Late  of  ^^TtitionB^  6.  u».,  c  rii..  p.  307. 

•♦The  hon.and  learned  gentleman  (nr/Kot>buck)had  !«jioken  of  the  invasion  of  the  Worth,  and  said  that  Washington  was  now 
Id  dangler,  and  that  the  South  had  nearly  achelved  (heir  object.  H^hy,  then.  In  the  name  of  common  sense,  not  leave  them  alone 
to  achieve  It."    Speech  of  Lord  R,  Montagu,  June  SOth,  1^63. 


About  foorteeo  Tear>  affo.  the  Iluuffarian  fH-uple  succeeded  after  a 
Bumerous  array  of  ^Iciorieji,  in  dri^ini;  a  povterlul  foreiun  ruler  out  of 
their  couotrr.  aud  eslabli>hint£  theui;!»elves  an  indepeDdenl  uatiou. 
The  struffk'le  ivo  far  a*  Austria  and  Humrarr  »ere  concerned,  was  not 
only  *•  firtually  "  o\er,  as  the  aduilrer>iorthi.s  new  recoKuition  doctrine 
would  sar,  but  it  ^\as  po<<)tiveiy  and  unquestioDably  brou;;ht  to  a  close. 
Not  oai\  bad  the  Hnn^arians  couiptetel)  scoured  their  country  of  the 
presence  of  all  Aostrianis  but  they  had  e\en  fulloMed  theui  to  Uieir 
caphaL  The  ^n'eat  and  the  grand  proof  of  the  utter  inability  of  Austria 
to  retrain  pos^e^tsion  of  that  countri,  via&  the  fact  of  her  beins  com- 
pelled to  hare  recourse  to  a  most  eWiminable  Russian  intervention. 
As  soon  as  Hunffar>'  had  fairly  cleared  herself  of  the  presence  of  the 
Au&trians  and  swept  them  out  of  her  countr>,  she  made  an  appeal  to 
£neliuid  to  be  recocnised  as  a  nation.  Etery  child  knoHs  the  onsner 
to  that  appeal.  ^  We  can  receive  no  ci>uununi cation  from  an\  part  of 
the  ^iustrioM  Ewifirt„  only  Ihrou^b  the  Austrian  AmbaMarior  in 
London."  Where.,  then  were  jour  Manchester  offices  for  •*re- 
coenition"  !  ^Vliere,  then  were  lOur  club»  in  Preston,  jour  monster 
public  meetiD§;s>our  great  placards,  >uur  motions  in  Parliament  for 
Recofniition  T  Tneo  you  knew  nothing  oi  such  ibings,  because  there 
was  no  Co//ofi  in  the  question ! :  If  Cotton  had  stood  behind  the  re- 
cognition of  the  Hungarian  nationality,  >ou  would  have  mot  ed  Heaven 
Vid  E^arth  to  have  brought  it  abouL  Nothing  would  haie  been  left 
undooe.  But  because  it  was  a  simple  and  a  plain  matter  of  Justice, 
and  because  such  a  thing  would  hate  been  disinterested  and  unselfish, 
there  were  no  eyes  to  see  if.  and  no  hearts  pure  enough  to  mnkc  an 
effort  to  bring  it  about.  Sorely  the  Eni;li»h  are  a  preat  and  a  mag- 
nanimous  people.  Is  it  not  wonderful  that  the  appeal  of  the  Hungarians 
does  not  nog  m  their  ears,  and  eomiK'l  them  from  >erj  shame  to  cea$»e 
their  agitation  about  recognition. 

At  the  head  of  one  of  their  placards  vessels  are  pictured  bringing 
C«tton,  and  the  motto  is  printed  "  Cotton,  the  only  substantial  aid  for 
Lancashire.  "  Tlie  picture  is  trult  indicative  of  the  real  motive  of  tfac 
whole  recognition  movement.  Cotton  is  the  banner.  Cotton  Is  the  detty. 
Before  Cotton.  Her  >liyestys  proclamation  of  neutralit>,  the  Laws, 
the  setting  of  a  dangerous  precedent,  and  e*er>lhing,  must  benfL 
The  professed  Atheist  is  scouted  as  a  bein;  dangerous  to  societ),  even 
although  he  may  have  given  some  proofs  of  self-sacrifice  for  princljile's 
6ake ;  but  those  men  are  far  more  dangerous  to  the  country,  it  bo, 
professing  that  Christianity  which  eq|oins  the  sacrifice  of  all  earthly 
things  even  life  itself  for  vVhat  is  right,  yet  shall  try  to  lead  the  country 
awat  from  a  Just  and  lawful  neutrality,  by  setting  up  Cotton  before 
everything,  truly  publishing  the  mammop-worshiplpg  spirit  that  is  anl- 
matins  them. 

If  thousands  upon  thousands  of  the  people  of  England  hare  been  in- 
duced to  leate  the  green  hills  and  flowery  vales  where  thev  were  bom, 
to  huddle  and  pack  themselves  toieether,  making  densely  populated 
towns  and  cities  breathing  air  that  ts  pobwnous  and  great  numbers  of 
them  living  that /a<(  life,  which  so  soon  comes  to  a  close;  surelv  if 
so  much  of  innocence,  simpUcltv,  health,  and  tife  has  been  sacrificed  in 
tfaLs  wa.>,  enough  has  been  lost  without  adding  (o  the  list,  the  crime  of  an 
unjust  intertention,  even  although  that  Intervention  be  to  get  Cotton. 
From  the  first  commencement  of  Cotton  manufacture,  we  have  l^een 
foolish  enough  to  depend,  in  a  very  jrreal  measure,  on  one  place  for 
supply.  If  we  uretonatepnblic  meetiugs  :^d  to  put  up  placards  and 
form  clulks,  and  have  lectures  ftnd  bare  petitions  to  Parliament,  let 
them  be  to  ^et  Cotton  from  other  places.  Is  it  not  foolish  to  be  de- 
pendent entirely  upon  one  place  (or  an  article,  upon  which  mi  many 
thousands  depend  for  their  daiiy  bread  \  The  aim  of  this  recognition 
movement,  Ls  to  still  concentrate  public  attention,  on  one  place  for  a 
supplv.  If  all  the  time,  money,  agitation,  and  attention,  which  has  al- 
reaay  been  laid  out  in  producing  a  {Kipular  crv'  for  recognition,  bad  been 
apeot  In  trv  ing  to  get  Cotton  somewbere  else,  or  to  laVe  steps  to  have  it 
grown,  something  would  have  been  done  nurih  the  trouble. 

Mr.  Bright  warned  the  House  of  Commons  on  the  30th,  how  much 
worse  a  com  famine  would  be  tlian  a  cotton  ramine-  Let  these  recog- 
nitionists  take  care  that  one  Is  not  superadded  to  the  other.  If  a  collec- 
tive European  Intei^eDtion  in  the  Cnited  Slates  should  arrest  the  ex- 
port of  grain  to  this  countrv',  the  prophecy  of  the  Russian  Historian, 
Haxthaisen  will  be  fiilfilled,  namely,  "  In  a  fe\t  years  Ehirope  will  be 
dependent  for  its  food,  upon  the  black  soU  of  Russia,  and  wUl  then  Ikave 
to  jiay  for  it  at  famine  prices. 

Mr.  Roebuck's  motion  for  the  recognition  of  the  Southern  t  'onfederacy 
Is  a  striking  example  of  the  power  acquired  h^  using,  as  a  weapon  of 
attack,  wonis  that  have  no  defined  meaning.  In  laws,  whether  muni- 
cipal or  international,  there  can  be  no  abstract  terms.  The  statement 
oi  a  fact  carries  with  it  a  corresponding;  obligation  which  cannot  be 
evaded.  >^lien  Great  Britain  recognised  the  independence  of  the  t'nlted 
States,  when  Spain  recognised  theindependeuce  of  her  Colonies  Great 
Britain  and  Spain  by  that  act  made  peace.  Tlie  other  nations  who, 
without  waiting  for  the  assent  of  Great  Britain,  acknowledged  the  i»> 


dependence  of  the  British  North  American  Colonies  at  once  prepared 
to  become  their  allies  In  the  war.  if  tbeyhad  not  done  so,  U  wouldhavc 
been  onlv  because  Great  Britain  was  not  stron;,-  evoogfa  to  resist  them. 
In  any  other  war  than  one  of  ludependence  no  nation  professing  nent- 
ralitt  officially,  expresses  an  opinion  on  the  pohits  in  (Uspnte  :  such  an 
act  would  at  once  be  reckoned  as  a  breach  of  neutrality?  In  the  cose 
now  beine  considered,  the  point  of  dispute  Is  exactly  this;  whether  the 
Southern  Confederacv  is  independent  or  not.  To  recognise  their  tn- 
dependencv  is  therefore  to  take  their  side.  To  pretend  that  this  is 
consistent  with  neutrility,  is  to  set  up  the  modem  code  that  con- 
tradictions are  reconcileable,  and  that  a  neutral  is  one  who  is  allowed 
to  take  a  side,  trith^.ut  incurring  the  risk  of  a  belligerent  Mr. 
Roebuck's  motion  therefore,  if  piU  in  a  straightforward  form  of  words 
could  mean  nothing  less  tiian  a  war  with  the  Vnited  States  for  t^ 
fcoke  of  the  .South. 

It  is  laid  down  by  Vnttel  tl|at  when  two  parties  of  a  State*are 
severed  by  rebellion  it  is  Lawful  for  a  third  partv  to  side  with  the  <me 
he  deems  in  the  right.  The  American  war  of  independence  came 
under  thisdescriptiou,  but  it  would  noikave  come  uader  Ibis  descriptioa 
iltbe  Americans  had  acted  as  Mr.  Roebuck  described  them  to  haTe 
done.  They  did  not  as  he  pretended,  declare  tliat  in  consequence  of 
th<ir  numbers  and  sfrcuglh  they  were  Justified  in  seUing  up  for  then- 
selves  thev  were  in  arms  becaase  the  rights  which  they  had  eqjoyed 
were  Invaded  by  the  Parliament  of  Great  Britain,  and  because  an 
attempt  was  made  to  reduce  them  to  a  subjectton  which  they  had  never 
known  and  to  which  they  refused  to  sabmiL  The  quarrel  was  not 
complicated  by  territorial  coosideratioos.  Tbe  remaiolnc  Britiak 
territory  commanded  by  the  St.  Laurence!  the  mouth  ofibe  Mi^slssiippl 
belonged  to  neither  partv  The  Hudson  wasin  the  absolute  possessoa 
of  the  I'nited  States  The  Allies  \tho  took  part  in  the  war  were 
Iherelore  able  to  do  so  without  ir\jury  to  any  but  their  enemv.  When 
peace  was  made  it  was  not  by  a  general  treaty,  the  I'alted  States  were 
not  restrained  by  anv  Earopean  aruarantee,  but  each  belligerent  made 
a  seperate  Treaty  with  Great  BritaiiL 

The  nislinp  circiimslancea  bear  oo  analogy  whslever  to  tboM  of  1775  The 
Southern  Stire*  'oaiead  of  being  laied  witboct  ibeir  uwa  eonsent  ba%'e  nerv'ly 
been  bealvn  inan  elertion  in  wbich  ibey  bad  more  than  tbe  aamerical  share  of 
votes,  iastead  of  having  rebelled  agaioai  ihtarf«of  rhe  Dew  Prcaldeot,  Ibei  took 
caretor^belnhile  jtt  hia  predeeeaaor,  who  waa  their  aceoiBplice,  remaiaed  la 
office,  in$le*d  of  exhausting  even  legal  means  of  obtaining  redress  for  alleged- 
grievances,  f  hey  neglected  to  make  use  ol  tbeprivilegea  which  ibe  conatitvtioa 
gave  them  to  call  a  convention  by  which  aeceMion  might  have  been  legalised. 

Besides  these  irregularities  there  is  a  further  difficulty  in  tbe  way  ofany  (oreig;* 
•tate  that  should  desire  to  take  part  with  tbe  Southern' Confedersry 

I'bey  demand  the  ooeirolof  tiieMissiaaippi,  tbe  rooulb  of  which  ncs  piinbaacJ 
from  Prsnce,  by.  and  (or  tbe  Union,  and  tbe  free  Navigstion  of  wbieb  la  so 
essenlial  to  the  Western  States,  which  dd  not  bold  Slavery,  that  it  is  now 
ceasing  to  be  a  secret  that  tbe  South  looka  to  tbe  po«se»ion  of  the  Misaivippi, 
as  a  means  of  socaring  fM>t  its  Independence  hot  of  reconstruct  ing  tbe  I'nioo  oa 
«  Southern  basis,  so  as  to  give  them  back  tbe  supremacy  which  they  have  kat 
by  the  election  of  Mr.  Lineoln,  for  England  to  recognise  tbe  Southern  Con- 
federacy is  for  her  plunge  into  ihe  vortei  and  to  mix  hervetf  op  wiih  tbe  moal 
important  of  alt  the  internal  affairs  of  the  united  States. 

But  wbsf  ia  openly  contemplated  is  sttll  more  than  that  which  b&a  jost  bcea 
described.  It  u  that  England  and  Fraoee  shall  iatervene  between  tbe  two 
parties  oo  the  gronnd  of  '*bnm«nity'*  trampling  on  tlie  right*  of  both,  sud 
dictating  terms  of  reconciliation.  England  is  (he  Northern  neightmar  of 
the  United  States.  France  ia  now  bj  her  invasion  of  Mexico,  their  neighbour 
oo  tbe  South.  A  forced  mediation  by  EogUod  and  France  would  oalj  be  a 
war  io  diaguise.  The  foiled  Slates  are  to  be  tbe  "Sick  Mnn"  of  the  new 
world.  VVhen  we  recollect  tbe  loss  of  hlood  and  treasure  and  character  which 
baa  followed  (he  English  allisBce  with  France  in  China  and  Tnrke\,  we  caooot 
help  shuddering  al  the  prospect  before  us  if  Mr.  Itocbuck's  siiggestioQ  sboald 
ever  be  adopted. 

Mr.  Gladstone  with  the  minute  discrimination  peculiar  to  himself,  wlftV  be 
declared  that  in  practice  recognUioo  of  the  indepcndef>ce  of  the  Sontbern  State* 
could  not  be  teperated  from  war  in  their  bebalf,  admitted  that  a  distincttoo 
might  be  made  io  theory.  But  it  is  difficult  to  understand  in  theory,  bow  a 
great  nation  like  England  cao  separate  tbt  formal  recoguition  of  the  iadepeodenca 
of  another  state  from  acts  in  its  support.  Mr.  Glsdsfone  must  ha^e  beeo  thinking 
of  Circsssia.  The  British  governmeai  have  declared  to  that  of  Russia,  that  in 
theory  they  bold  Circasia  to  be  iodepeodent,  yet  io  practice  they  iatiaiais  to 
Brilisb  mereb ants  that  if  they  trade  with  this  iiwlependeni  c'lintrj  whose  porta 
are  aot  blockaded,  their  ahips  will  beseiied  by  Huaaian  Cruisers 

Wo*.i)  )(  aol  b«  wort^  obU*  le  ca^uin  hew  il  i<  ttal  Ut*  BiiHab  ComuBrat.  frh»  va  ttnU  W  m%^- 
btelixt  Ib.lr  rli^ii  aipia,!  Rani*.  <rb«  haa  itM  t>.>p*  cMuKb  I«  fclvk*J>  tX>  mlf  at  "j-rtiiii.  ti»mU  k*t* 
M  liiUf  (<»  sf  riitpM-abn)  itt  I'eilrd  SUtn,  -k*  kt.  ■MukllT  blKUdkn^  «mc  Jnoo  aUU*  of  CMM.  f.f- 
Wl  inil  fttaa  bj  A»  Crt»«*B  W  w,  pra  is  R«*a  At  •SoliUwi  ^t  tin  fU(ta(  W  9c«nb,  ami  tk»  |iiiiM-ia 
M  afuul  Tvfcaj.  of  tb*  SUcfc  9m.  Bj  tfcrir  CbiarM  War  Atj  fit*  hm  ik*  immiarj  it  ik*  A^mt.  (^I  U 
•t  Ik*  AuUic  nwi  oppmll*  the  t  alMrf  •!■««  B<  (k«lr  W«r  «><k  Japsa,  Ik*;  will  fi,t  Wr  ■  foniM  W  *W 
•MAtr*.     I(  tb*;  tourCnv  to  U«  W>IM4  Sutn.  ii  ««<  W  hi  m>mt  laicml  mat  lk«ir  «n 


»         Issued  by  order  of  the  Preston  Foreign  Affoirs  As9ociationf       T.  KERSHAW,    Chalrmail. 

W.  SIKOLBTON,   Secretary. 
A  Petition  against  Recognition,  and  for  a  continuance  of  Neutrality,  is  in  course  of  S»iguature. 

CHARLES  A^HBLEB,  PRUiTEB,  34.  CA>3iOi\  STREET,  PRESTOS 


136  DAVID  URQUHART 

Francis  Marx,  and  Charles  Dobson  Collet,^  famous  as  the 
devoted  Secretary  for  "  The  Association  for  the  Repeal  of 
the  Tax  on  Newspapers  and  the  Excise  on  Paper." 

By  then'  help  and  that  of  sympathisers  in  the  various 
towns,  145  Committees  were  formed;  some  in  large  towns, 
some  in  the  villages,  where  they  were  even  more  successful 
than  in  the  towns. 

"  If  Ufe  remains  in  England,"  said  a  working  man,  who 
knew  the  various  Committees  well,  "it  is  in  the  villages. 
If  hope  can  be  entertained  of  her  recovery,  that  hope  is 
based  upon  the  simpler  and  less  sophisticated  minds  of  our 
rural  populations." 

For  their  mutual  encouragement  the  village  Committees 
chose  out  a  centre  where  once  a  month  all  the  Committees 
met. 

In  the  interval  they  visited  one  another,  lent  one  another 
books,  and  kept  one  another  up  to  the  mark  in  cases  of 
slackness.  Besides  these  smaller  groups  there  were  "Dis- 
tricts "  consisting  of  many  Committees,  which  had  their 
centre  in  some  town  like  Leeds  or  Manchester.  The  District 
Meetings  took  place  once  in  three  or  six  months,  and  were 
generally  addressed  by  Urquhart  or  Rolland  or  one  of  the 
other  founders  of  the  Society.  "  Schools  of  Public  Law  " 
Urquhart  called  them.     They  were,  as  we  have  seen,  also 


on  the  lines  of  land-tenure  and  local  self-government.  It  still  exists 
and  flourishes  as  a  little  colony  of  free-holders  who  manage  their 
own  aiiairs  in  a  Land-holders'  Court. 

A  description  of  it  wUl  be  found  in  the  Appendix. 

1  "  Charles  Dobson  Collet,  who  had  achieved  distinction  as  the 
Secretary  of  the  twelve  years'  agitation  for  the  Repeal  of  the  Taxes 
on  Knowledge,  was  a  man  of  wide  knowledge,  versed  alike  in  the 
literature  of  Law  and  Diplomacy.  He  was  the  greatest  worker  of 
liis  day  for  untaxed  knowledge  and  untaxed  travelling.  His  reasons 
for  the  Repeal  of  the  Passenger  Duty  were  delivered  by  him  to  the 
Society  of  Arts,  in  February,  1877.  Viscount  Gorst  was  in  the  chair. 
Mr.  Collet  and  tlie  present  writer  formed  (October,  1877)  a  Committee 
of  forty  persons  known  as  promolors  of  working-class  progress;  among 
them  Joseph  (Jowen,  M.P.,  Th.  Burt,  M.P.,  Henry  liroadhurst  M.P., 
Alderman  (h-awshaw  (of  Manchester),  and  others.  .  .  . 

"  Mr.  Collet,  the  Founder  o[  tlie  Committee  for  the  Ab  ilitiou  of 
th?  Passenger  Tax,  in  the  interests  of  Commerce,  and  of  the  working 
classes,  vigilant  to  the  last,  died  in  his  84th  year." 

History  of  the  Travelling  Tax.  by  G.  J.  Holyoi.kc,  1901. 


FOREIGN  AFFAIRS  COMMITTEES  137 

schools  of  character  and  of  manners.  Until  1864  Urquhart 
considered  himself  responsible  for  the  training  of  the  men, 
and  they  were  encouraged  to  send  to  him  for  criticism 
reports  of  their  conversations  with  their  fellows  or  their 
superiors,  and  the  private  letters  by  which,  for  the  most 
part,  their  propaganda  was  carried  on. 

If  a  man  showed  himself  particularly  able,  he  was  generally 
invited  to  spend  a  little  time  under  his  chief's  eye  at  Rick- 
mansworth  or  later  at  Worthing.  He  was  there  supposed 
to  give  himself  wholly  to  "  self -improvement."  The  process 
was  a  severe  one.  The  smallest  fault  in  manner,  any 
familiarity,  stupidity,  or  thoughtlessness  met  with  its  meed, 
more  than  its  meed  it  seems  sometimes,  of  blame. ^  No 
excuses  were  admitted.  If  a  man  was  right  he  must  prove 
himself  right,  if  wrong  he  must  take  the  blame,  but  an 
excuse  was  anathema.  It  was  the  result  of  the  deadly  sin 
of  wanting  to  seem  right  rather  than  to  be  right. 

1  Urquhart  was  as  severe  upon  himself  as  he  was  upon  others  for 
any  failure,  however  unintentional,  in  consideration  or  courtesy. 

His  self-discipline,  however,  was  not  without  its  inconvenient 
side.  There  h  a  story  still  current  in  the  family  of  one  of  his  oldest 
friends,  David  Ross  of  Bladensburg,  which  bears  this  out.  On 
one  occasion,  w^hen  Urquhart  and  his  wife  were  staying  in  the  house, 
he  wandered  too  long  in  the  woods  and  returned  home  when  every- 
one had  finished  dinner.  The  family  had  waited  for  some  time, 
and  when,  at  Mrs.  Urquhart's  request,  dinner  was  served  without 
him,  his  hostess  took  every  care  that  he  should  not  suffer  tor  his 
lateness.  This,  however,  did  not  meet  Urquhart's  view.  He  was 
late.  It  was  a  breach  of  good  manners.  He  deserved  no  dinner. 
He  Avould  therefore  have  none. 

His  hostess'  distress,  however,  at  the  idea  of  her  guest  going  hungry 
to  bed  caused  him  to  modify  his  determination.  He  would  have 
some  bread  and  cheese.  The  bread  and  cheese  was  therefore  brought, 
when  it  occurred  to  him  to  toast  the  cheese;  but  he  must  toast  it 
himself.    It  was  siimmer  and  there  was  no  fire.    The  fire  had  to  be  lit. 

Behold  him  then  at  last  established  in  front  of  the  newly  lit  fire 
with  his  cheese  at  the  end  of  a  fork.  But  alas  !  in  the  midst  of  the 
operation  an  absorbing  tojiic  of  conversation  was  started. 

Urquhart  turned  to  join  in,  cheese  and  aU  else  forgotten,  both 
by  Urquhart  and  his  hearers. 

Softer  and  softer  grew  the  cheese,  longer  and  longer  grew  the 
long  viscous  yellow  trail — till  at  last  it  disappeared  into  the  fire, 
leaving  Urquhart's  toasting-fork  bare. 

This  time  he  was  adamant.  Discourtesy  crowned  by  inattention 
to  the  matter  in  hand  could  not  be  overlooked. 

Urquhart  went  witliout  even  a  bread  and  cheese  dinner;  and  all 
his  hostess'  trouble  was  thrown  away,  to  say  nothing  of  the  extra 
work  entailed  on  servants. 


138  DAVID  URQUHART 

To  a  man  who  had  used  a  "  vulgar  expression  "  and  tried 
to  excuse  himself  on  the  ground  that  he  was  "  but  a  working 
man,  and  therefore  could  not  be  expected  to  behave  like 
a  gentleman,"  Urquhart  wrote: 

"  For  me  no  difference  exists  in  men  because  of  their 
circumstances.  ...  I  will  no  more  hold  intercourse  with 
a  King  than  a  shoemaker  if  not  honest  and  if  not  polite. 
A  vulgar  term,  an  excuse  in  lieu  of  a  desire  to  be  right,  I 
hold  in  equal  abhorrence  with  a  fraud  or  with  perjury. 
The  man  who  excuses  himself  maintains  the  maxim  that 
it  is  not  in  him  to  be  right.  If  you  excuse  yourself  because 
of  your  station  in  life  for  being  coarse  and  vulgar,  you  will 
also  excuse  yourself  because  of  the  age  in  which  you  live, 
for  every  ignorance,  for  every  debasement,  for  every  crime ; 
you  justify  the  very  things  your  reprobation  of  which  is 
the  sole  and  only  ground  of  intercourse  between  us,  which 
intercourse  now  ceases  unless  these  words  awaken  in  you 
shame  and  repentance — shame  for  having  written  an  idle 
word,  and  repentance  for  attempting  to  justify  an  error." 

To  another,  who  in  apologising  for  an  error  had  said, 
"  I  am  sorry  that  I  have  hurt  your  feelings,"  and  had 
mentioned  in  extenuation  that  he  was  Uable  to  error  in 
dealing  with  gentlemen,  because  he  had  "  received  no 
education,"  Urquhart  wrote: 

"  You  observe  that  many  of  the  Committee  men  are  in 
the  same  position  as  yourself;  with  the  best  intentions, 
possessing  knowledge  sufficient  to  rouse  the  most  apathetic, 
yet  having  received  no  education,  finding  their  efforts  futile 
or  noxious.  Education  is  merely  a  bringing  up.  All  the 
bringing  up  that  a  just  man  wants  is  to  be  taught  to  speak 
the  truth,  to  know  the  right,  to  cling  to  it,  and  to  abjure 
in  himself,  and  prevent  in  others,  the  wrong.  Such  was  the 
bringing  up  of  the  ignorant  men  who  formed  the  noblest 
service  that  the  learned  have  now  to  possess,  namely,  the 
Laws  of  England.  Such  was  the  bringing  up  or  the  second 
bringing  up  of  the  ploughmen  and  the  fishermen  who  were 
the  prophets  of  Israel  and  the  Apostles  of  Christianity. 

"  When  God's  will  is  enacted  upon  earth  at  any  time  it 
is  out  of  weakness  that  comes  strength,  it  is  from  the  Hps 
of  babes  and  sucklings  that  comes  forth  wisdom.  In  the 
case  before  us  it  was  not  knowledge  that  was  want'.ng,  it 
was  not  '  facts '  that  were  deficient.    Your  lettar  which  so 


FOREIGN  AFFAIRS  COMMITTEES  139 

grieved  me  did  so  grieve  me  precisely  because  of  the  just 
appreciation  of  the  facts,  comiected  with  a  cavilling  spirit. 
When  I  take  up  The  Times,  or  any  other  newspaper,  or 
read  debates  in  the  House  I  am  not  grieved;  I  have  gone 
through  them  once  for  all.  I  know  what  the  nation  is,  in 
so  far  that  they  do  not  know  what  to  do  or  what  to  say. 
But,  treating  them  as  such,  one  may  go  on,  if  not  hoping, 
toiUng  in  this  expectation  that  when  the  illusions  are  dis- 
pelled they  may  demean  themselves  as  men.  Your  letter 
goes  to  the  farthest  point,  being  a  specimen  of  the  con- 
dition of  Englishmen  after  their  delusions  have  been  dis- 
pelled, showing  that  the  characters  and  energies  of  men 
have  disappeared  with  them.  I  can  continue  my  batt'e 
without  compromise  so  long  as  the  enemy  I  have  to  deal  with 
is  error,  I  cannot  do  so  when  it  is  once  estabhshed  that 
after  error  has  been  dispelled  honour  does  not  revive." 

This  method  of  Urquhart's  in  aiming  at  the  highest,  in 
being  content  with  nothing  less,  had  a  two -fold  effect. 
Some  men  were  frightened  away  by  it.  When,  however, 
men  were  really  capable  of  appreciating  the  self-sacrifice, 
the  labour,  and  the  moral  height  of  their  master,  they  reached 
themselves  great  heights  in  thus  following  him.  Some 
of  them  showed  the  greatness  of  their  own  characters  in 
their  abilitj^  to  appreciate  him,  the  scope  of  his  work,  what 
he  would  do  for  them,  and  what  they  must  do  for  themselves. 

One  of  them  writes : 

"  Whatever  his  enemies  say  to  the  contrary,  I  unhesi- 
tatingly affirm  that  (Mr.  Urquhart)  is  one  of  the  most 
profound  thinkers  of  modern  times.  Quick  at  perception, 
skilful  in  the  arrangement  of  his  thoughts,  coherent,  con- 
centrative  and  logical  in  his  expressions,  fervent  and  ener- 
getic in  their  delivery,  such  a  man  is  in  every  respect  fitted 
for  the  high  vocation  of  preceptor  to  a  self-willed,  ignorant, 
and  benighted  race.  You  say  very  properly,  in  answer  to 
the  idle  words  of  those  who  are  afraid  to  investigate,  that 
Mr.  Urquhart  has  no  ambition  to  become  a  leader.  Can 
(men)  not  understand  that  a  man  may  be  an  instructor, 
without  being  a  leader,  and  can  they  not  see  that  a  truthful 
teacher  cannot  inspire  to  leadership  as  the  term  is  accepted, 
because  his  office  is  to  raise  others  above  the  servile  neces- 
sity of  it,  by  developing  qualities  which  make  people  wise 
and  virtuous  ?      Men  may  despise  Mr.  Urquhart  for  ex- 


140  DAVID  URQUHART 

posing  the  wrong  and  denouncing  the  evil-doer,  but  they 
may  at  least  calm  their  fears  as  regards  his  leadership  of 
public  opinion.  That  can  never  be,  because  it  professes 
nothing  that  is  soUd,  stable,  or  enduring.  It  is  but  a 
fleeting  shadow,  a  dancing  meteor,  an  exhalation  or  a 
passing  breeze.  In  lieu  of  that  which  is  futile  and  unsub- 
stantial he  would  recommend  us  to  study,  so  that,  when 
appealed  to,  the  introductory  expression  of  each  would 
be  '  I  know,'  instead  of  '  I  think.'  This  would  be  sub- 
stituting knowledge  for  ignorance,  fact  for  opinions.  The 
end  of  such  wisdom  would  direct  us  to  Public  Law,  Public 
Rights,  and  create  in  us  fortitude  to  enforce  them.  There- 
fore no  man  who  has  a  knowledge  of  Law  and  its  uses,  and 
attends  to  its  application,  will  whine  for  a  leader,  or  excuse 
himself  from  doing  what  is  right  because  he  can't  obtain 
one." 

This  letter  well  expresses  the  relation  of  Urquhart  to 
the  Committees.  He  founded  them,  he  infused  his  spu-it 
into  them,  he  was  ready  to  bestow  love,  labour,  thought, 
care  on  them,  he  was  their  master;  but  he  was  in  no  sense 
the  leader  of  a  party.  In  1864  his  health  obliged  him  to 
leave  England;  he  never  returned  to  it  except  for  short 
visits,  and  the  men  were  then  entirely  thrown  on  their  own 
resources,  with  only  their  master's  written  words  to  en- 
courage or  rebuke  them.  But  for  more  than  fifteen  years 
they  continued  their  work,  and  theu*  steady  adherence  to 
the  principles  in  which  they  had  been  trained,  their  loyalty 
to  a  cause  which  they  must  have  seen  was  making  no 
headway,  are  proofs  enough  that  the  lofty  ideals  which  had 
been  set  before  them  they  had  taken  for  their  own  standard 
of  life,  and  are  a  sufficient  answer  to  those  who  would 
accuse  the  Foreign  Affairs  Committees  of  having  blindly 
followed  Urquhart's  lead. 


CHAPTER  VII 

THE  AIMS  AND  WORK  OF  THE  COMMITTEES 

"So  natural  is  the  union  of  Religion  with  Justice  that  we  may 
boldly  deem  there  is  neither  where  both  are  not." — Hooker. 

"  Our  Fathers  took  care  that  what  their  Rulers  did  was  lawful; 
we  take  for  Law  that  which  our  Rulers  do." — "  Free  Press  "  3Iotto. 

The  great  aims  which  David  Urquhart  set  before  the 
Committees  were  the  restoration  of  the  Enghsh  Constitution 
and  the  re-estabhshment  of  Pubhc  Law  among  nations. 
AH  the  evils  under  which  the  working  man  suffered,  and 
which  he  thought  would  be  remedied  by  the  Franchise, 
Reform  Bill,  and  Corn  Laws  Repeal,  Urquhart  said  could 
only  be  remedied  by  the  Restoration  of  Law. 

"  The  Committees,"  he  said,  "  are  schools  of  Public  Law. 
If  properly  conducted  and  sufficiently  attended,  those  who 
compose  them,  though  few  in  number,  will  perform  the 
office  that  ought  to  be  performed  by  the  whole  State.  .  .  . 
The  first  business  of  the  Committees  is  work;  the  second 
denunciation;  the  third  prophecy.  When  they  have  pos- 
sessed themselves  of  a  knowledge  of  the  Law  and,  so  quah- 
fi,ed,  have  possessed  themselves  of  a  knowledge  of  the  facts, 
they  are  in  a  position  to  denounce,  not  indeed  the  Govern- 
ment, but  then-  fellow-citizens.  They  are  equally  in  a 
position  to  foretell,  for  it  is  only  to  the  ignorant  that  there 
remains  any  mystery  in  the  course  of  present  events." 

It  was  part  of  his  creed  that  every  intelhgent  member 
of  the  State  ought  to  be  conversant  with  its  politics,  its 
commerce,  its  finance.  That  the  modern  citizen  was  not 
so  conversant,  in  so  far  as  it  was  not  attributable  to  his 
indolence,  was  due  to  the  cloud  of  mystification  in  which 
those  things  were  hidden  from  the  public  gaze. 

This  programme  the  Committees  faithfully  endeavoured 
to  carry  out.     No  pubhc  transaction  took  place  during  the 

141 


142  DAVID  URQUHART 

period  of  their  activity,  from  the  war  in  Afghanistan  to  the 
Congress  of  Brussels,  in  which  the  men  of  the  Committees 
did  not  claim  to  exercise  their  right  of  Englishmen  to  make 
their  voices  heard  in  approval,  criticism,  or,  more  often, 
denunciation. 

No  peace  was   concluded,  no   Conference  was  held,  no 
active  interference  in  other  countries  took  place  which  they 
did  not  judge  with  the  knowledge  and  acumen  of  statesmen. 
Against   the   Declaration  of   Paris,   with   its   surrender   of 
England's  Maritime  Rights,  they  petitioned,  not  only  the 
Queen,  but  both  Houses  of  Parliament,  and  when  it  was  a 
fait  accompli  they  worked  for  twenty  years  to  prevent  its 
ratification,  if  not   to  bring  about  its  abrogation.     They 
found  themselves  in  opposition  to  the  great  mass  of  their 
fellow-countrymen   over   the   Indian   Mutiny   and   on   the 
question  of  Italian  Unity.     They  sent  a  petition  to   the 
Pope  for  the  Restoration  of  the  Canon  Law,  and  a  deputa- 
tion to   the   French  Assembly,  after  the  Franco -German 
War,  begging  the  French  nation  to  set  up  a  Tribunal  for 
judging   causes  of  peace   and  war.     It  is  true  that  in  all 
these  cases  a  lead  was  given  to  them  by  their  master,  but 
the  letters  they  wrote  and  the  petitions  which  they  drew 
up  contain  their  own  ideas,  and  were  often  very  obviously 
couched  in  their  own  words,  while  the  deputations  which 
were  sent  consisted  of  working  men  from  among  themselves, 
who  set  forth  their  own  ideas  in  their  own  language.     Not 
only  were  they  exceedingly  tiresome  to  successive  Govern- 
ments over  current  events,  but  they  had  an  awkward  habit 
of  recurring  to  past  acts  of  wrong  and  injustice,  and  de- 
manding  satisfaction  and  rej^aration.     The   crime  of  the 
Afghan  War,  for  instance,  took  place  in  1849.     The  falsified 
despatches  were  safely  deposited  in  the  Archives,  and  the 
Foreign  Minister,  who  had  made  an  unwarrantable  attack 
on  a  friendly  country,  who  had  betrayed  to  death  fifteen 
thousand  of  his  fellow-countrymen,  and,  for  his  own  ends, 
had  tarnished  a  brave  man's  reputation  and  allowed  him 
to  rest  in  his  grave  under  a  cloud  of  dishonour,  was  still 
enjoying  offices  and  honours. 

But   the   Foreign   Affairs   Committees,   in  studying  the 


THE  AIMS  AND  WORK  OF  THE  COMMITTEES     143 

history  of  their  own  times,  had  ftallcii  upon  the  story  of  the 
Afghan  War.  They  had  read  in  the  Report  of  the  East 
India  ComjDany  Dr.  Burnes'  passionate  outcry:  "They 
garbled  my  brother's  despatches";  as  well  as  the  tragic 
story  told  in  Kaye's  History,  and  they  had  decided  that  the 
tragedy  of  Afghanistan  was  a  public  crime. 

In  1855  the  Birmingham  Foreign  Affairs  Committee 
pubHshed  a  Report  in  which  they  set  forth  their  conclusions 
as  follows : 

"  First,  that  the  invasion  of  Afghanistan  was  not  the 
act  of  the  Directors  of  the  East  India  Company,  nor  of  the 
Governor-General  of  India,  but  of  the  Home  Government. 

"  Secondly,  that  the  pretext  by  which  it  was  seen  fit 
to  justify  the  invasion — i.e.,  that  Dost  Mohammed  Khan, 
the  ruler  of  Cabul,  was  a  friend  of  Russia  and  an  enemy  of 
England,  was  utterly  false,  the  contrary  of  that  statement 
being  true. 

"  Thirdly,  that  the  pretext  was  sustained  by  extracts 
from  the  despatches  of  Sir  Alexander  Burnes,  the  English 
envoy  at  Caboul,  which  were  laid  before  Parliament,  being 
so  artfully  altered,  falsified  and  garbled,  that  they  bore 
a  meaning  precisely  the  reverse  of  that  of  the  original 
despatches  of  Sir  A.  Burnes." 

This  was  by  no  means  the  first  time  that  this  charge  of 
falsification  had  been  brought  against  the  Government. 
In  1842  Mr.  Henry  BailUe  had  moved  in  the  House  of  Com- 
mons for  the  production  of  the  papers.  Though  seconded 
by  Disraeh,  the  motion  only  received  nine  supporters.  In 
1843  Mr.  Thomas  Roebuck  had  made  a  motion  to  the  same 
effect,  which  was  defeated  by  189  votes  to  75. 

In  1847  Anstey,^  in  his  speech  against  Lord  Palmerston, 
said: 

^  Thomas  Cliisliolm  Anstey  was  a  barrister  of  the  Inner  Temple. 
Called  to  the  Bar  in  1839,  he  was,  however,  as  much  interested  in 
religion  as  in  law.  He  was  deeply  influenced  by  the  Oxford  Move- 
ment, but  passed  through  it  to  become  a  Catholic.  Some  of  his  most 
interesting  lectures  on  the  EngUsh  Constitution  were  delivered  to 
the  students  of  Prior  Park,  near  Bath. 

After  his  speech  against  Palmerston  in  the  House,  Palmerston 
invited  him  to  dinner,  and  soon  after  appointed  him  Attorney-General 
of  Hong-Kong.  The  action  could  hardly  have  been  due  to  benevo- 
lence. The  writer  of  the  article  on  Anstey  in  the  Dictiunary  of 
National  Biography  says: 


144  DAVID  URQUHART 

"  I  say  that  forgeries,  for  it  amounts  to  that,  were  com- 
mitted for  the  purpose  of  misleading  ParHament  as  to  the 
intentions  and  disposition  of  the  people  of  Afghanistan. 
This  is  particularly  true  with  reference  to  the  despatches 
of  the  late  Sir  Alexander  Burnes,  and  I  am  in  a  position 
to  prove  it  by  reference  to  the  original  drafts  of  his 
despatches." 

Palmerston  had  replied  that,  while  it  was  true  that 
passages  had  been  omitted,  they  were  only  such  as  were 
irrelevant  to  the  question  at  issue. 

In  1857  the  Foreign  Affairs  Committee  of  Newcastle 
appointed  a  sub-committee  to  inquire  into  the  Afghan 
War,  which  issued  the  following  Report : 

"1.  That  certain  despatches  written  by  Sir  Alexander 
Burnes,  British  Envoy  at  Caboul,  in  the  years  1837  and 
1838  to  Sir  WiUiam  M'Naghten,  Secretary  to  Lord  Auck- 
land, Governor-General  of  India,  were  not  laid  before 
Parhament  in  their  complete  form,  but  were  mutilated  and 
garbled  in  such  a  manner  as  to  entirely  alter  their  character 
and  meaning. 

"2.  That  Lord  Palmerston  in  a  speech  in  the  House  of 
Commons,  on  March  1st,  1848,  acknowledged  his  responsi- 
bility, and  that  of  his  colleagues,  for  the  suppression  of 
passages  of  the  despatches  of  Sir  Alexander  Burnes,  in  the 
Afghan  Papers,  Nos.  5  and  6,  presented  to  Parhament  in 
1839;  and  has  also  admitted  that  these  suppressions  were 
not  accidental,  but  designedly  made  by  them,  for  the  sake 
of  brevity,  and  to  avoid  confusing  the  minds  of  members 
of  the  House  of  Commons. 

"  3.  That  the  vahdity  of  this  plea  is  a  simple  matter  of 
evidence,  to  be  settled  only  by  comparison  of  the  despatches 

"  Although  his  political  conduct  hardly  seemed  to  give  him  any 
claim  to  Government  Office,  in  1854  Anstey  was  nominated  Attorney- 
G-eneral  to  Hong-Kong." 

He  was  suspended,  however,  in  1858,  having  come  into  collision 
with  Sir  John  Bowring,  the  Governor,  on  the  subject  of  the  corrupt 
police  practices  by  which  the  latter  worked. 

He  ultimately  attained  to  eminence  at  the  Indian  Bar.  He  occu- 
pied the  Bench  at  Bombay  in  1865. 

Anstey  and  Urquhart  were  intimate  friends  during  Urquhart's 
parliamentary  career;  and  Anstey  all  through  his  life  preserved  a 
deep  and  sincere  veneration  for  Urquhart.  But  after  his  defection 
Urquhart  cut  him  off  and  would  have  no  more  intercourse  with  him. 
He,  like  Lothair  Buch*  r,  liad,  he  said,  been  bought  with  a  price. 


THE  AIMS  AND  WORK  OF  THE  COMMITTEES     145 

of  Sir  Alexander  Burnes,  as  published  in  the  Blue  Books, 
with  his  original  and  unmutilated  despatches. 

"4.  That  this  duty  has  never  been  discharged  by  the 
House  of  Commons,  although  copies  of  the  original  and 
unmutilated  despatches  of  Sir  Alexander  Burnes  have  been 
widely  circulated  by  his  friends  and  relations  in  defence  of 
his  character,  and  in  vindication  of  his  memory. 

"5.  That  they  (the  Committee)  have  carefully  compared 
the  origmal  despatches  of  Sir  A.  Burnes  (copies  of  which 
they  have  obtained  from  his  brother-in-law)  with  the 
Afghan  Blue  Books,  Nos.  5  and  6,  and  they  find  that  these 
alterations  are  so  important  that  they  cannot  possibly  be 
accounted  for  in  the  manner  asserted  by  Lord  Palmerston, 
but  that  they  show  the  existence  of  a  design  to  deceive  the 
British  Parliament  and  the  Nation,  by  making  it  appear 
that  the  views  of  Sir  A.  Burnes  were  in  favour  of  the  acts 
of  the  ministers,  in  refusing  to  support,  and  in  deposing 
Dost  Mohammed,  when  in  reality  the  original  despatches 
prove  he  was  strongly  opposed  to  such  an  undertaking. 

"  G.  Crawshay,  Chairman. 
"  G.  Stobart,  Secretary. 

"  Newcastle-on-Tyne, 

"A^pril  6,  1857." 

Attached  to  the  Report  are  three  appendixes,  consisting 
of: 

Appendix  A. — The  most  prominent  perversions  contained 
in  the  Blue  Books. 

Appendix  B. — Sir  Alexander  Burnes'  original  despatches 
with  the  omissions  of  the  Blue  Books  marked. 

Appendix  C. — ^The  Petition  of  the  father  of  Sir  Alexander 
Burnes  for  justice  to  his  dead  son,  together  with  extracts 
from  that  son's  private  letters  to  his  family. 

The  Report  must  have  been  a  bitter  pill  for  the  Govern- 
ment as  well  as  a  blow  for  those  who  thought  that  at 
least  in  Blue  Books  the  truth  was  to  be  found. 

It  was  in  direct  consequence  of  the  Report  to  the  New- 
castle Committee  and  the  petitions  of  the  other  Committees 
that  ]VIi-.  Hadford,  the  Member  for  Sheffield,  brought  for- 
ward a  Motion  in  the  House  for  the  production  of  the  original 
papers . 

The  Motion  was  agreed  to,  and  the  papers  were  produced. 

10 


146  DAVID  URQUHART 

Thanks  to  the  good  offices  of  Mr.  Kaye,  the  historian  of  the 
Afghan  War,  then  the  Keeper  of  PoUtical  and  Secret  Service 
Papers,  they  were  pubHshed  with  the  original  omissions  in 
parallel  columns  marked  in  red  ink  so  that  the  falsifications 
could  be  clearly  seen. 

The  next  step  would  have  naturally  been  the  punishment 
of  those  surviving  members  of  the  Government  who  were 
responsible  for  the  disaster  and  fraud.  "  I  have  done  my 
part,"  said  Hadford  to  the  Newcastle  Committee,  "  it  is 
for  you  to  do  yours."  This  the  Committee  willingly  en- 
deavoured to  do.  They  in  company  with  the  other  Com- 
mittees petitioned  Parliament : — 

"  That  your  Honourable  House  may  take  into  their  con- 
sideration the  volume  of  documents  entitled  '  Copies  of 
the  Correspondence  of  Sir  Alexander  Burnes  with  the 
Governor  of  India  during  his  Mission  to  Caboul  in  the 
years  1837  and  1838,'  or  such  part  thereof  as  has  not  been 
aiready  published,  and  to  make  laiown  by  your  decision 
thereon  whether  it  was  fat  and  proper  to  mutilate  the  terms 
and  alter  the  sense  of  the  despatches  of  Her  Majesty's 
Service." 

So  heavily  did  the  fear  of  Palmerston  lie  upon  the  House 
that  it  was  with  great  difficulty  that  the  Committees  found 
a  Member  who  would  bring  forward  a  Motion  for  an  in- 
quiry. At  last,  however,  they  succeeded,  and  in  1861  the 
Member  for  Greenock,  Mr.  Dunlop,  moved  that  "  a  select 
Committee  be  appointed  to  consider  the  correspondence 
relating  to  Afghanistan  as  presented  to  the  House  in  1839 
and  the  same  correspondence  as  presented  in  1858."  The 
Motion  was  defeated  by  a  large  majority  in  spite  of  John 
Bright 's^  vigorous  and  impassioned  speech  in  support  of  it. 

1  Lord  Palmerston  opi^osed  tlie  Motion  on  the  grounds  that  the 
matter  was  past  history,  a  matter  indeed  almost  for  antiquarian 
research  and,  it  would  have  seemed  by  his  remarks,  of  really  very 
little  importance.  The  greater  part  of  his  speech  was  taken  up 
in  belittling  the  character  and  ability  of  Sir  Alexander  Burnes.  John 
Bright  on  this  occasion  was  on  the  side  of  the  Committees.  "  I  do 
not  suppose,"  he  said,  "  that  it  is  intended  to  arraign  anybody  for  a 
policy  which  sacrificed  at  least  20,000  human  beings,  nor  is  it  intended 
to  inquire  how  the  loss  of  more  than  £15,000,000  sterling  by  that 
policy  has  affected  for  all  future  time  tlie  finances  and  position  of 
the  Indian  Government,  but  it  is  worth  knowing  whether  there  was 


THE  AIMS  AND  WORK  OF  THE  COMMITTEES      147 

The  Chinese  War  afforded  the  next  field  of  the  Com  - 
mittees'  campaign  for  the  re-establishment  of  Law  and 
Justice. 

The  attack  was  opened  in  a  way  characteristic  of  the 
thoroughness  of  Urquhart's  methods  of  training  the  Com- 
mittees in  regard  to  public  questions.  The  Free  Press, 
which,  as  the  Committees  increased,  was  his  chief  means  of 
communicating  with  them,  contained,  in  September,  1859, 
an  account  of  the  dealings  of  England  with  China,  from 
the  iniquitous  introduction  of  the  opium  trade  in  1833,  to 
the  forcing  of  the  Peiho  by  Admiral  Seymour.  All  the 
facts  were  collected  from  official  documents,  and  left  no 
doubt  of  the  flagrant  injustice  towards  China  of  the  suc- 
cessive Enghsh  Governments.  The  Committees  at  once 
took  up  the  matter,  and  so  impressive  was  their  action 
upon  the  working  classes  that  their  membership  quickly 
increased  threefold. 

As  regards  Urquhart  himseK,  the  action  of  the  English 
Church  in  the  Chinese  War  was  the  end  of  the  hope  he  had 
once  cherished  that  she  might  restore  at  least  in  England 
respect  for  the  Law  of  Nations.  The  volte-face  of  the 
Bishop  of  Oxford  in  first  denouncing  the  war  as  unjust,  and 
then  declaring  that  by  it  God  had  opened  "  a  door  for  us 
in  China,"  and  the  subserviency  of  the  clergy  in  accepting, 
without  remonstrance,  the  action  of  the  Government,  roused 
in  him  and  his  followers  a  passion  of  indignation. 

The  Stafford  Committee  wi'ote  on  its  own  initiative  a 
long  and  cogent  letter  of  remonstrance  to  the  Bishop  of 
Oxford,  which  his  Lordship  declined  to  read. 

A  working  man,  John  Booth,  wrote  from  Stockport  to 
the  Bishop  of  Lincoln  in  reference  to  his  speech  at  the 
meeting  of  the  Society  for  the  Propagation  of  the  Gospel : 

a  mau  in  high  position  in  the  Government  or  in  India  who  had  so 
low  an  opinion  of  honour  and  right,  that  he  should  offer  to  this  House 
mutilated,  false,  forged  opinions  of  a  public  servant,  who  lost  his 
life  in  the  pubUc  service.  I  say  an  odious  offence  has  been  committed 
against  this  House,  and  we  want  to  know  who  did  it.  The  noble 
Lord  does  not  think  it  is  anything  wrong.  The  letters  he  says  are 
of  '  trifling  importance.'  '  Sir  Alexander's  opinions  are  not  worth 
much.'  Be  it  so.  But  if  this  be  a  matter  of  so  little  importance 
will  the  noble  Lord  teU  us  who  did  it  f ' 


148  DAVID  URQUHART 

"  At  a  public  meeting  of  the  members  and  friends  of  the 
Society  for  the  Propagation  of  the  Gospel  held  at  Willis' 
Rooms,  your  Lordship  is  reported  to  have  said  that  God 
in  His  Providence  had  opened  another  country  and  given 
another  road  by  which  the  Gospel  could  penetrate.  I  beg 
leave,  my  Lord,  to  submit  that  if  God  had  opened  China 
the  means  supplied  were  of  God's  appointment.  I  ask, 
my  Lord,  if  this  is  not  a  blasphemous  assertion,  for  we  are 
told  that  God  is  a  God  of  equity.  Now  I  ask  you,  my  Lord, 
were  the  means  appUed  for  the  opening  of  China  equitable  ? 
Are  the  sacrifice  of  human  hfe  and  destruction  of  property 
(without  just  cause)  the  means  instituted  by  the  Almighty 
for  the  accomplishment  of  His  purpose  ?  If  they  are,  the 
Atheist  may  well  exclaim  that  the  world  would  be  better 
without  such  a  God  than  to  have  one." 

The  Stafford  Committees  posted  up  huge  placards 
setting  forth  to  the  working  men  the  wrongs  done  to  the 
Chinese. 

"  Without  any  declaration  of  war,  your  army  bombards 
Canton,  massacres  its  inhabitants ;  you  call  in  the  assistance 
of  other  Powers,  terrify  and  alarm  the  Emperor,  shake  the 
sword  even  over  Pekin,  and  after  committing  unheard-of 
cruelties,  demand  from  that  much-injured  monarch 
£1,400,000,  hke  the  highwaymen:  '  Stand  and  dehver  !' 
We  emphatically  denounce  these  atrocities  and  extortions, 
and  call  upon  you  to  do  the  same.  WeU  may  the  Chinese 
call  us  barbarians,  for  what  else  are  we  ?  Will  that  ill- 
used  people,  think  you,  receive  Christianity  from  our  hands, 
stained  with  the  blood  of  their  fellow-men  ?  Will  our  con- 
duct be  likely  to  increase  our  trade  with  them  ?  They  are 
not  made  of  stone  and  have  a  memory." 

On  the  eve  of  the  departure  to  China  of  the  punitive 
expedition  of  1860,  the  following  address  from  the  various 
Committees  to  the  soldiers  and  sailors  was  both  posted  up 
and  circulated : 

*'  FELLOW-COUNTRYMEN, 

"  We,  who  have  taken  the  trouble  to  inform  our- 
selves as  to  what  is,  and  what  is  not  lawful,  as  to  what 
constitutes  War  and  what  Piracy,  address  ourselves  to  you, 
who  have  not  taken  the  trouble,  and  therefore  do  not  know, 
to  warn  you  of  the  guilt  you  are  about  to  incur,  and  of  the 


THE  AIMS  AND  WORK  OF  THE  COMMITTEES     149 

dangers  in  which  you  are  thereby  going  to  involve  ns  with 
the  rest  of  your  fellow-countrymen.  War  has  not  been 
declared  against  China.  For  in  war  a  declaration  has  to 
be  made  to  the  enemy,  and  the  proclamation  thereof  by  the 
Queen,  with  the  sanction  of  the  Privy  Council  to  her  sub- 
jects. Such  is  the  Law  of  the  land  and  of  all  lands  where 
there  is  virtue,  honour,  religion,  or  sense.  Those  who  act 
otherwise  are  not  even  savages,  for  savages  declare  war 
before  they  kill  men.  It  is  this  declaration  and  proclarna- 
tion  which  saves  the  conscience  of  the  soldier  in  slaughtering 
his  fellow-men,  and  whoever,  without  this  warrant,  does 
use  his  weapon  to  destroy  human  hfe,  is  a  base  murderer, 
liable  to  be  hung  as  a  pirate  by  the  people  he  attacks,  and 
exposed  to  be  condemned  as  a  felon  in  England,  according 
to  the  municipal  law  of  the  land. 

"  The  order  of  a  Secretary  of  State  for  levying  war  is  no 
justification,  and  if  the  case  be  brought  before  a  Court 
of  Law  the  accused  will  not  be  screened  by  assigning  such 
a  document  as  the  defence. 

"  The  military  oath  has  been  from  time  immemorial  to 
defend  the  State.  If  from  the  soldier  were  required  an 
oath,  which  involved  the  commission  of  crime,  it  would  be 
impious,  and  no  citizen  could  take  it.  The  duty  of  a 
soldier  is  super-added  to  that  of  a  citizen,  and  does  not 
destroy  it:  he  undertakes  the  defence  of  his  fellow -citizens, 
he  does  not  become  a  salaried  assassin.  The  soldier  as  a 
soldier  has  not  to  enquire  into  the  justice  of  the  war,  but 
as  a  soldier  he  must  know  that  it  is  lawful." 

The  document  was  signed  by  twenty  delegates  of  Foreign 
Affairs  Committees  assembled,  in  their  Conference  at 
Manchester,  January  8,  1860. 

But  perhaps  the  most  important  work  the  Committees  took 
up  was  their  action  in  the  matter  of  the  Declaration  of  Paris. 

For  nearly  twenty  years,  from  1856  to  1875,  they  never 
ceased  to  demand  the  abrogation  of  a  Treaty  which  con- 
travened the  ancient  Maritime  Law,  which  placed  no  hind- 
rance in  the  way  of  enemy  trade  in  time  of  war,  and  which 
took  away  from  belUgerents  the  Right  of  Search.  They 
were  thoroughly  versed  in  all  the  bearings  of  the  question, 
for,  in  this  matter  which  he  considered  vital  to  the  life  of 
England,  Urquhart  had  carefuUy  and  exhaustively  in- 
structed them. 


150  DAVID  URQUHART 

In  his  eyes  England  lived  or  died  by  keeping  or  losing 
her  Maritime  Power.  To  the  law-loving  soul  of  one  who 
had  been  a  sailor  in  his  adventurous  youth  the  Law  of  the 
Seas  was  doubly  dear.  Quite  early  in  his  career  he  was 
brought  into  contact  with  that  Law,  both  in  theory  and 
practice.  He  had  in  his  boyhood  come  across  a  copy  of 
Ward's  Maritime  Laiv,^  and  he  had  studied  it  with  his 
accustomed  eagerness.  And  what  he  knew  he  was  caUed 
upon  to  use,  when  he  acted  as  witness  in  the  Admiral's 
Prize  Court  during  the  Greek  War  of  Independence. 

When,  on  the  eve  of  the  Crimean  War,  England  and 
France  agreed  to  waive  their  rights  of  seizing  enemy  goods 
if  protected  by  a  neutral  flag,  Urquhart  set  before  his 
"schools  of  Public  Law"  the  results  of  such  an  action. 
It  meant,  he  said,  that  Russian  trade  would  be  unim- 
paired, that  our  preponderance  of  power  at  sea  would 
avail  nothing  in  the  war,  and  that  a  determined  effort 
would  be  made  by  Russia  to  make  the  arrangement 
permanent. 

Events  proved  him  to  have  been  right.  Trade  between 
Russia  and  England  never  ceased  during  the  war.  The 
Admiralty  advertised  for  and  bought  Russian  tallow. 
The  Government,  driven  into  a  corner  by  the  indignation 
of  many  classes  of  the  community,  tried  to  excuse  their 
action  by  pretending  that  they  had  acted  in  the  interests 
of  English  trade.  The  Declaration  of  Paris  which  Russia 
manoeuvred  into  the  Peace  Conference  abundantly  justified 
his  prophecy  that  Russia,  having  obtained  that  for  which 
she  had  been  scheming  ever  since  the  time  of  the  Armed 
Neutralities,  would  not  again  let  it  go. 

Urquhart  submitted  to  a  long  cross-examination  by  the 
working  men  of  Birmingham,  the  results  of  which  were 
afterwards  embodied  in  a  pamphlet.  In  it  he  sketched, 
in  an  answer  to  questions  from  the  men,  the  history  of 
Maritime    Law  from  the  laws  laid  down  by  the  maritime 

1  Ward's  Treatise  on  Maritime  Law  was  publisliecl  in  ISOl, 
at  the  request  of  Lord  Grenville.  It  was  reprinted  in  1874  with  a 
Preface  by  Lord  Stanley  of  Alderley.  who  notes  its  complete  and 
remarkable  disappearance  "  within  late  years  from  those  Public 
Libraries  where  it  is  known  to  have  existed." 


THE  AIMS  AND  WORK  OF  THE  COMMITTEES     151 

cities  of  the  Mediterranean,  and  which  were  codified  under 
the  title  of  the  "  Consolato  del  Mare."i 

He  dealt  with  her  enemies'  various  attempts,  from  the 
Armed  Neutralities  onward,  to  wrest  from  England  her 
greatest  defence.  He  showed  that  the  plea  of  humanity 
which  Russia  had  always  made  in  her  so-called  attempts 
to  gain  for  the  rest  of  the  world  the  "  liberty  of  the  seas  " 
was  but  a  false  plea,  since  more  could  be  accomplished  at 
sea  by  the  seizure  of  property  than  could  be  effected  on 
land  at  the  cost  of  hundreds  of  thousands  of  lives. 

The  Foreign  Affairs  Committees  were  quick  to  grasp  the 
ideas  thus  put  before  them  and  to  recognise  the  danger  that 
lurked  in  the  "  humanity  and  civilisation  "  of  which  the 
"Declaration  of  Paris  blatantly  proclaimed  itself  the  har- 
binger. To  these  men,  versed  in  the  Law  of  Nations,  it 
seemed  a  display  of  ignorance  on  the  one  side  and  adroit 
machination  on  the  other.  They  took  up  the  position  which 
for  twenty  3-ears  they  steadily  maintained,  that  it  was  quite 
impossible  for  the  plenipotentiaries  assembled  in  the  Paris 
Conference  to  override  the  ancient  Laws  of  Europe,  that 
the  Right  of  Search  must  be  allowed  to  belligerents,  that 
privateering  was  not  necessarily  an  inhuman  method  of 
naval  warfare,  and  that  enemy  trading  could  not,  save  at 
the  risk  of  prolonged  wars  and  increased  armaments,  be 
allowed  to  go  on  under  neutral  flags.  This  position  they 
maintained  by  every  means  in  their  power — by  addresses 
to  the  Queen,  petitions  to  Parliament,  public  meetings,  and 
lectures  to  working  men. 

On  two  points  they  found  themselves  on  two  separate 
occasions  joining  hands  with  the  United  States.  The  first 
of  these  occasions  was  in  1857,  when  America,  being  asked 
to  sign  the  Declaration,  objected  to  the  article  which  con- 

1  He  mistakenly  attributes  the  Consolato  to  St.  Louis.  The 
earliest  jMSS.  of  it  extant  are  in  the  Catalan  language,  and  none  are 
earlier  than  the  fourteenth  century.  It  is  the  Booh  of  the  Consulate 
of  the  Sea,  i.e.,  the  Law  of  the  "  Consules  Maris,"  the  Commercial 
Judges  of  the  Mediterranean  cities.  The  Rhodean  Sea  Law  is  the 
olde-:t  of  all.     It  is  referred  to  in  the  Canon  Law: 

Rhodise  leges  navalium  commerciorum  sunt,  ab  insula  Rhode 
eognominatse,  in  qua  antiquitus  mercatorum  usus  fuit."'  {Oratian, 
Decretals.  Pt.  I.,  D.  II.,  ch.  viii.) 


152  DAVID  URQUHART 

demned  privateering,  pointing  out  that  she  was  dependent 
upon  it  for  sea-power  in  time  of  war.^ 

Again,  in  1862,  during  the  American  Civil  War,  in  the 
affair  of  the  Trent,  they  ranged  themselves  on  the  side  of 
America,  who  had  asserted  the  Right  of  Search  by  boarding 
an  English  vessel  in  search  of  two  Commissioners  of  the 
Southern  States  who  had  found  asylum  there. 

War  between  the  two  countries  seemed  imminent  when 
America  yielded  and  gave  up  the  Commissioners.  Urquhart 
had  forewarned  the  Committees  that  this  would  probably 
be  the  upshot  of  the  affair.  "  For,"  said  he,  "  the  rupture 
with  America  is  not  intended  to  lead  to  a  long  maritime 
struggle  for  the  time  being,  but  to  a  parliamentary  sanction 
of  the  Declaration  of  Paris." 

He  was  right.  A  Motion  was  brought  forward  in  the 
House,  "  That  the  present  state  of  International  Law  as 
affecting  neutrals  is  so  ill-defined  and  unsatisfactory  as  to 
call  for  the  early  attention  of  Hei  Majesty's  Government." 

This  was  what  Urquhart  feared;  he  warned  the  Com- 
mittees against  an  attempt  to  introduce  a  new  code  of 
Maritime  Law  secretly  inspired  by  those  who  were  pre- 
paring for  the  day  of  great  armaments.  The  Committees 
responded  nobly:  they  petitioned,  interviewed,  held  meet- 
ings, and  wrote  letters  to  the  newspapers.  Urquhart  con- 
sidered that  they  had  won  a  victory  when,  though  the 
Declaration  of  Paris  was  not  repudiated,  yet  its  supporters 
did  not  find  themselves  strong  enough  to  bring  about  its 
actual  affirmation. 

This  affair  of  the  Trent  drew  forth  from  one  of  the  mem- 
bers of  the  Manchester  Committee,  Mr .  A.  Smith,  a  journeyman 
shoemaker,  eight  letters  on  the  Defences  of  England  which 
appeared  in  the  Nottingham  Weekly  Times.  These  letters 
attracted  the  attention  of  John  Stuart  Mill,  and  converted 

1  She  declared,  however,  that  if  this  article  were  extended  to 
the  protection  of  aU  private  property  at  sea  she  would  accept  it. 
Cobden  vigorously  supported  her  on  the  ground  that  such  a  provision 
would  practically  abolish  war,  and  make  it  but  a  "  duel  of  Govern- 
ments." This  position  of  Cobden's  led  to  a  long  correspondence 
between  him  and  the  Committees  in  which  he  was  certainly  worsted. 
It  is  to  be  found  in  the  Free  Press  Supplement,  December,  1859. 


THE  AIMS  AND  WORK  OF  THE  COMJVnTTEES     153 

him  to  the  writer's  point  of  view  on  Maritime  Law.  So 
convinced  was  the  veteran  economist  of  the  justice  of  the 
Committees'  position  on  the  subject  that  in  1867,  when  a 
motion  was  brought  forward  in  the  House  to  appoint  a 
Commission  on  Maritime  Law,  he  entirely  took  their  side 
in  strenuously  resisting  it,  and  moved,  instead,  for  the 
complete  abrogation  of  the  Declaration  of  Paris. 

The  attention  of  the  Committees  was  again  called  to  the 
matter  in  1870  by  the  Franco -Prussian  War.  Urquhart 
believed  that  the  defeat  of  France  had  been  in  a  very  large 
measure  due  to  the  Declaration  of  Paris,  which  had  rendered 
her  navy  useless.^  He  did  not  forget,  moreover,  that  it  was 
England  who,  at  the  beginning  of  the  war,  had  bound 
France  to  that  Declaration  by  Lord  Granville's  intimation 
that  she  must  consider  herself  pledged  to  observe  it.  In 
September,  1870,  the  Foreign  Affairs  Committees  of  Cheshire 
sent  an  address  to  the  Emperor  of  the  French  urging  upon 
him  its  entire  repudiation. 

To  appreciate  the  statesmanship  and  far-sightedness  of 
this  document  we  must  remember  that  it  was  drawn  up, 
not  when  Prussia  had  reveabd  herself  in  her  true  colours, 
but  when  she  was  the  admired  of  Europe  and  considered 
to  be  the  victim  of  France's  ambition. 

"  We  have  seen  with  profound  grief,"  began  the  address, 
"  a  foreign  army  advancing  into  France,  and  apparently 
about  to  inflict  on  Paris  all  the  horrors  of  a  siege.  It 
increases  our  grief  that  this  invasion  has  the  appearance 
of  having  been  wantonly  provoked  and  ingeniously  prepared 
by  Prussia.  We  know  that  the  nomination  of  a  Prussian 
Prince  to  the  throne  of  Spain  was  felt  by  every  Frenchman 
not  only  as  an  insult,  but  as  a  preparation  for  an  invasion 
of  France  by  Prussia.  After  Prussia's  seizure  of .  Schleswig- 
Holstein  by  a  fraud,  after  the  breaking  up  by  force  of  the 
German  Confederation,  of  which  she  was  a  member  .  .  . 
after  her  persistent  refusal  to  execute  the  Treaty  of  Prague, 
it  was  evident  that  no  reliance  could  be  placed  on  Prussia's 

^  German  trade  was,  he  said,  carried  on  by  neutral  merchantmen, 
while  her  navy  was  snugly  tucked  away  in  the  harbour  of  Kiel. 
The  French  navy  roamed  the  seas  with  nothing  to  do,  and  had  to 
see  food  and  contraband  of  war  being  carried  to  Germany,  while  she 
was  powerless  to  prevent  it. 


154  DAVID  URQUHART 

sense  of  right  or  on  her  word,  even  when  plighted  to  Ger- 
mans. We  know,  too,  that  your  Majesty  had  proposed  to 
tlie  King  of  Prussia  a  mutual  disarmament,  and  that  M. 
de  Bismarck  had  refused  his  consent  to  any  such  arrange- 
ment. .  .  .  From  any  further  aggrandisement  of  Prussia 
consequences  terrible  to  mankind  are  certain  to  follow, 
while  it  is  possible  to  hope  that  such  may  not  follow  in  case 
of  the  success  of  France. 

"  We  therefore  beg  to  point  out  to  your  Majesty  the 
neglect  of  a  very  important  means  against  the  enemy  of 
France  in  not  secpiestering  her  property  placed  within 
reach  of  seizure  as  being  in  passage  over  the  sea.  Thousands 
of  Frenchmen  are  slaughtered  by  an  enemy  who  is  de- 
vastating France  and  is  about  to  reduce  the  neighbourhood 
of  the  capital  to  a  desert.  Yet  that  enemy  is  allowed  to 
carry  on  his  trade  in  peace  under  a  neutral  flag.  We  are 
told  that  his  plea  for  the  abnegation  of  maritime  power 
is  to  assimilate  war  on  sea  to  war  on  land  where  private 
property  is  respected.  Private  property  is  not  respected 
by  the  Prussians  in  France.  The  cause  assigned  for  sparing 
Prussia  at  sea  is  the  Declaration  of  Paris,  which  forbids  the 
seizure  of  enemy  goods  in  neutral  vessels,  a  practice  com- 
monly followed  by  France  as  w^ell  as  England  until  the 
Crimean  War  in  1854.  But  what  is  the  Declaration  of 
Paris  ?  England  is  not  bound  by  it,  for  even  supposing 
that  any  State  could  alter  the  Law  of  Nations,  the  Con- 
ference of  Paris  was  not  competent  to  make  laws  for  English- 
men, Not  one  of  Her  Majesty's  servants  has  ever  dared 
to  ask  for  an  Act  of  Parliament  to  sanction  this  change  in 
the  Laws  of  England." 

Testimony,  the  more  remarkable  because  it  was  uncon- 
scious, was  born  to  the  power  of  prevision  with  which 
Urquhart's  training  had  endowed  the  working  men  of  the 
Committees  by  a  speech  deUvered  four  years  later  in  the 
French  Assembly  by  a  Deputy,  M.  Jean  Brunei,  who 
pointed  out  how  disastrous  for  them  in  the  Franco -Prussian 
War  had  been  the  consequences  of  the  Declaration  of  Paris, 
which  prevented  them  from  seizing  at  sea  all  the  vessels 
which  the  great  German  ports  of  Hamburg,  Bremen,  Stettin 
and  Dantzig  sent  out  over  the  world,  and  so  crippling  the 
resources  of  Germany  that  she  would  have  been  forced  to 
suspend  her  invasion  of  French  territory. 


THE  AIMS  AND  WORK  OF  THE  COMMITTEES    155 

In  1871  Mr.  Cavendish  Bentinck  brought  forward  a 
Motion  in  the  House  that  England  should  now  withdraw 
from  the  Declaration  of  Paris.  Mr.  Gladstone,  in  his  speech 
on  the  Motion,  said  that  "  the  stipulations  of  the  Declara- 
tion of  Paris  have  a  binding  force  at  this  moment." 

His  speech  was  taken  up  by  the  members  of  a  society 
connected  with  the  Birmingham  Foreign  Affairs  Associa- 
tion, and  the  following  correspondence  took  place: — ^ 

'^  Mutual  Improvement  Society, 
"  54,  Price  Street, 

"Birmingham. 

"  3Ia>f  1,  1871. 

"  Sir, — I  am  directed  by  the  above  society  to  say  that 
they  have  read  with  interest  the  debate  in  the  House  of 
Commons  on  Mr.  Bentinck's  Motion  relative  to  the  De- 
claration of  Paris  of  1856.  In  the  debate  you  are  reported 
to  have  said  that  the  '  stipulations  of  the  Declaration  of 
Paris  have  a  binding  force  at  this  moment,  and  the  Govern- 
ment are  not  therefore  at  liberty  to  entertain  any  resolu- 
tion for  getting  rid  of  them.'  This  society  has  lately  had 
the  Declaration  of  Paris  under  serious  consideration,  and 
its  members  are  aware  that  the  Declaration  is  in  itself 
illegal,  and  by  the  words  of  Lord  Clarendon  himself  is 
shown  to  be  unauthorised,  and  has  never  yet  been  sanctioned 
by  Crown,  Parliament,  or  people  of  this  country.  Under 
these  circumstances,  I  am  directed  to  ask  you  to  be  kind 
enough  to  inform  us  whether  you  really  used  the  words, 
and  if  so,  from  what  source  the  stipulations  not  contained 
in  the  Treaty  derive  their  binding  force  ? — I  have,  etc., 

"  E.  Cook,  Secretary. 

"  Right  Hon.  W.  E.  Gladstone,  M.P." 

"  10,  Downing  Street, 
"Whitehall, 

"  Mfuj  8,  1871. 

"Sir, — ^Mr.  Gladstone  desires  me  to  acknowledge  the  receipt 
of  your  letter  on  the  subject  of  the  debate  held  in  the  House 
of  Commons  with  reference  to  the  '  Declaration  of  Paris,' 
and  to  inform  you  that  treaty  power  belongs  to  the  Crown, 
and  the  words  of  his  speech  on  that  occasion,  agreeing  with 
those  of  other  authorities,  went  to  show  that  the  Declara- 

*  See  Diplomatic  Eeview,  July,  1871. 


156  DAVID  URQUHART 

tion  partakes  (in  what  degree  he  did  not  attempt  precisely 
to  define)  of  the  character  of  a  reciprocal  engagement.  Mr. 
Gladstone  cannot  speak  precisely  as  to  the  phrases  which 
he  is  reported  to  have  used. — I  have,  etc., 

"W.    B.    GURDON. 

"E.  Cook,  Esq.'' 

"Mutual  Improvement  Society, 
"Birmingham, 

"  May  15. 

"  Sir, — I  am  directed  by  the  above  society  to  acknowledge 
and  thank  you  for  your  note  of  the  8th  instant.  The  society 
have  considered  your  letter,  and  instruct  me  to  say  that 
they  are  glad  to  find  you  laying  down  that  "  treaty  power 
belongs  to  the  Crown."  With  that  they  fully  concur, 
and  it  was  precisely  because  the  Declaration  of  Paris  was 
not  contained  in  the  treaty,  and  not  made  by  authority 
of  the  Crown,  and  was,  moreover,  illegal  in  itself,  and  has 
never  yet  received  the  sanction  of  either  Crown  or  Parlia- 
ment, that  they  wished  you  to  inform  them  from  what 
source  it  derived  the  binding  force  you  are  reported  to 
have  attributed  to  it,  but  as  you  have  shown  no  source 
from  which  it  could  have  derived  that  binding  force,  we 
must  presume  there  is  no  force  in  it,  and  as  you  cannot 
speak  precisely  as  to  the  terms  you  used,  while  at  the 
same  time  it  is  of  consequence  that  a  man  in  your  position 
should  not  appear  to  give  value  to  a  declaration  of  that 
nature,  I  am  instructed  to  respectfully  ask  you,  for  your 
own  sake  and  the  welfare  of  our  common  country,  to  take 
or  make  an  early  opportunity  of  declaring  pubhcly  that 
the  treaty  power  belongs  to  the  Crown  only,  and  con- 
sequently the  Declaration  of  Paris  has  no  binding  force 
on  this  country,  and  is  null  and  void,  and  taking  the  neces- 
sary legal  steps  in  connection  therewith. — I  have  the 
honour  to  be,  on  behalf  of  the  society, 

"  Edwin  Cook,  Secretary. 

"Right  Hon.  W.  E.  Gladstone,  M.P." 

"  10,  Downing  Street, 
"  Whitehall, 

''May  17. 

"SiR^_Mr.  Gladstone  desires  me  to  acknowledge  the 
receipt  of  your  letter  of  the  15th  instant,  and  to  inform 
you  that  the  Declaration  of  Paris  was  made  by  persons 
whom  the  Crown  had  authorised  to  that  effect. — I  am,  Sir, 
etc.,  "W.  B.  GuRDON." 


THE  AIMS  AND  WORK  OF  THE  COMMITTEES     157 

"Birmingham, 

"  May  19. 

"  Sir, — I  am  directed  by  the  '  Price  Street  Mutual  Im- 
provement Society  '  to  thank  you  for  your  note  of  the 
17th  instant,  and  to  say  that  the  Declaration  of  Paris  (not 
the  treaty)  professed  to  alter  the  Law  of  Nations  and 
reverse  the  practice  (which  in  former  times  accorded  with 
the  Law)  of  this  countrj'.  We  know  that  the  Crown  has 
power  to  conclude  treaties  in  accordance  luith  law,  but  '  the 
King  can  do  no  wrong,'  and  we  therefore  find  Bracton 
writing  thus:  '  Rex  in  Regno  duos  superiores  habet,  Deum 
et  Legem.' 

"  Who,  then,  has  the  power  to  alter  the  law  of  nations, 
which  is  defined  to  be  '  The  principles  of  the  law  of  nature 
applied  to  the  conduct  and  the  affairs  of  nations  and 
sovereigns  '?  And,  according  to  Lord  Hobart  in  his 
Reports,  page  87 :  '  Jura  natm-ae  sunt  immutabiha — ^sunt 
leges  legum.' 

"  But  the  question  is  not  one  of  the  power  of  the  Crown, 
it  is  now  reduced  to  one  of  the  authority  given  to  Lord 
Clarendon.  That  nobleman  said,  in  speaking  of  this  very 
Declaration :  '  If  we  had  confined  ourselves  within  the 
strict  hmits  of  our  attributions,  we  should  have  lost  the 
opportunity  when  the  representatives  of  the  principal 
Powers  of  Europe  were  met  together  for  discussion.' 

We  are  astonished  to  hear  from  you  that  the  Crown  did 
authorise  the  Declaration  of  Paris,  and,  as  we  believe  it 
would  go  far  to  settle  at  least  one  point  of  the  controversy 
on  the  subject  if  that  fact  were  generally  known,  may  we 
beg  of  you  to  tell  us  where  we  can  find  the  evidence  of  such 
authorisation. — I  have  the  honour,  etc., 

"Edwin  Cook,  Secretary. 

"Eight  Hon.  W.  E.  Gladstone,  M.P." 

"  10,  Downing  Street, 
"Whitehall, 

''May  22. 

"Sir, — Mr.  Gladstone  desires  me  to  acknowledge  the 
receipt  of  your  letter  of  the  19th  instant,  inquiring  where 
evidence  may  be  found  that  the  Declaration  of  Paris  was 
made  by  persons  whom  the  Crown  had  authorised  to  that 
effect. 

I  am  directed  to  refer  you  to  the  full  powers  of  the  Envoys, 
and  the  records  supplied  by  the  protocols. — I  am.  Sir,  etc., 

"W.   B.   GURDON." 


158  DAVID  URQUHART 


Birmingham, 
"  3Io.y  30. 


"  Sir, — I  am  directed  to  acknowledge  and  thank  you  for 
your  letter  of  the  22nd  instant.  We  have  carefully  looked 
through  the  Blue  Book  on  the  Conference  of  Paris,  1856, 
but  have  been  unable  to  find  the  authority  under  which 
Lord  Clarendon  acted  when  he  signed  the  Declaration  on 
Maritime  Law.  I  am,  therefore,  instructed  to  ask  you  to 
still  further  extend  your  kindness  to  us  by  stating  to  what 
particular  protocol  you  referred. — I  have  the  honour  to 
be,  etc., 

"  E.  Cook,  Secretary. 

"Right  Hon.  W.  E.  Gladstone,  M.P." 


"10,  Downing  Street, 
"Whitehall, 

''June  r>. 

"  Sir, — Mr.  Gladstone  desires  me  to  acknowledge  the 
receipt  of  your  letter  of  May  30th,  and  to  express  his  regret 
that  he  is  not  able  to  enter  into  further  details  respecting 
the  matter  which  you  have  brought  before  him. — I  am, 
Sir,  etc., 

''W.    B.    GURDON. 

"E.  Cook,  Esq." 

"Birmingham, 
''June  3. 

"  Sir, — I  am  directed  by  the  above  society  to  acknowledge 
and  thank  you  for  your  letter  of  the  22nd  instant.  This 
society,  seeing  that  your  name  was  used  to  give  apparent 
sanction  to  the  Declaration  of  Paris,  asked  to  be  informed 
of  the  source  of  the  binding  force  you  attributed  to 
it.  You  replied,  '  treaty  power  belongs  to  the  Crown,' 
evidently  meaning  us  to  infer  that  the  '  Declaration  '  had 
the  force  of  a  treaty,  and  the  Crown  was  to  be  used  as  a 
scapegoat  to  bear  the  blame.  The  society  answered  that  the 
'  Declaration  '  was  not  part  of  the  Treaty,  and  had  not 
been  the  act  of  or  sanctioned  by  the  Crown,  and  asked 
you  to  take  steps  to  get  it  declared  null.  You  replied  that 
the  '  Crown  had  authorised  '  the  Declaration.  The  society 
then  asked  for  evidence  of  the  authority.  In  reply  you 
referred  us  to  the  '  full  powers  '  and  the  '  protocols.' 
The  society  answered  that  after  careful  examination  of  the 
protocols,  they  could  not  find  the  authority,  and  asked 


THE  AIMS  AND  WORK  OF  THE  COMMITTEES    159 

you  to  specify  them  to   which  you  referred.     You  then 
'  regret  that  you  are  unable  to  enter  into  further  details.' 

The  society  instruct  me  to  say,  that  as  you  are  unable 
to  point  out  the  '  authority  '  given  to  Lord  Clarendon, 
they  have  again  for  themselves  carefully  examined  the 
Protocols  of  the  Conference  of  Paris.  The  Envoys  there 
assembled  had  full  powers  to  make  peace  with  Russia, 
and  that  was  all. 

"  Peace  was  signed  on  the  30th  March,  1856. 

"  On  the  8th  of  March,  1856,  Count  Walewski  first  intro- 
duced the  subject  of  Maritime  Law,  and  proposed  the 
Declaration.  Lord  Clarendon  said  '  England  was  disposed 
to  agree  '  on  conditions  (which  have  not  been  carried  out), 
the  Envoys  of  Russia,  Austria,  and  Prussia  expressly 
stating  that  they  had  no  instructions  on  the  subject.  The 
Protocols  do  not,  therefore,  contain  what  your  letter  in- 
ferred we  should  find  in  them;  and,  as  in  ordinary  life, 
when  a  man  makes  a  statement  which  he  is  unable  to  sub- 
stantiate, his  regret  should  lead  him  to  own  he  was  wrong 
and  set  himself  right,  I  am  instructed  to  ask  you  to  rectify 
yom'  former  statement,  that  '  the  Crown  had  authorised  ' 
the  Declaration  of  Paris,  and  to  take  steps  to  have  it 
declared  null. 

"  If  your  '  regret  '  should  lead  to  this  result  it  will  end 
in  the  pleasure  of  Imowing  you  have  done  right  and  will 
not  be  in  vain. 

"If  it  does  not,  this  society  will  know  how  to  estimate  a 
man  who  is  unable  to  show  that  he  is  right  or  to  admit  that 
he  is  wrong. — I  have,  Sir,  etc., 

"E.  Cook,  Secretary. 

"  Right  Hon.  W.  E.  Gladstone,  M.P." 

"  10,  Downing  Street, 
"Whitehall, 
"  J«n,e  6,  1871. 

"Sir, — Mr.  Gladstone  desires  me  to  aclaiowledge  the 
receipt  of  your  letter  of  June  3rd. — I  am,  Sii',  etc., 

"W.    B.    GURDON. 
"E.  Cook,  Esq." 

This  was  the  end  of  the  correspondence  ! 

In  1874  England  was  invited  to  send  a  representative  to 
the  Congress  of  Brussels,  which  had  been  called  by  Russia 
for  the  avowed  purpose  of  drawing  up  a  Code  of  Inter- 


160  DAVID  URQUHART 

national  Law.  Urquhart  describes  it,  in  the  Diplomatic 
Review,  as  a  further  attempt  to  give  over  the  world  into 
the  hands  of  Powers  possessing  huge  armaments. 

The  Foreign  Affairs  Committees  of  Cheshire,  Lancashire, 
Yorkshire  and  Northumberland  addressed  a  circular  letter 
to  their  fellow-workers  setting  forth  the  dangers  that  lurked 
in  the  Congress.  They  dealt  with  two  of  its  articles  in 
particular,  one  of  which  was  directed  against  England's 
sea  power,  while  the  other  gave  to  armies  of  occupation  of 
an  invaded  country  absolute  and  legal  claim  on  the  allegi- 
ance of  the  inhabitants  of  that  country. 

"  That  means,"  they  pointed  out,  "  that  the  command 
of  the  world  will  be  transferred  from  the  naval  to  the 
military  powers ;  you  will  be  unable  to  defend  your  colonies, 
which  will  fall  into  the  hands  of  the  enemy,  who  for  a 
hundred  years  has  been  endeavouring  to  bring  ruin  upon 
you.  Your  enemy's  commerce  will  ride  the  sea  securely 
and  safely  while  your  enemy's  armies  are  invading  India. 
...  It  only  requires  to  recollect  the  former  times,  and  to 
use  your  own  sense,  which  will  tell  you  that  our  country 
can  only  be  defended  by  naval  power,  and  that  it  is  not 
when  the  armies  of  the  Continent,  raised  by  constraint, 
count  by  millions,  and  are  getting  larger  every  day,  that 
England  can  afford  to  abate  one  jot  or  tittle  of  those  ad- 
vantages she  possesses  by  her  geographical  position." 

The  Foreign  Affairs  Committees  of  Hockley  and  Birming- 
ham joined  with  the  Bhmingham  Liberal  Association  and 
the  Birmingham  Conservative  Working  Men's  Association 
in  presenting  a  petition  to  Disraeh  against  the  representa- 
tion of  England  at  the  Congress,  and  a  large  pubhc  meeting 
was  held  at  Macclesfield  under  the  auspices  of  the  Foreign 
Affairs  Committee  for  the  same  purpose.  Amongst  those 
on  the  platform  was  the  old  Chartist  Wesleyan  Minister, 
(Stephens  of  Staly bridge,  who  had  for  a  long  time  now  been 
working  with  the  Foreign  Affairs  Committees.  Twenty  of 
the  Committees  addressed  Disraeh  on  the  same  subject, 
and  most  of  the  journals  of  provincial  towns  where  there 
were  Committees  pubhshed  letters  from  some  members 
of  them. 

David  Rule,  a  member  of  the  Newcastle  Foreign  Affairs 


THE  AIMS  AND  WORK  OF  THE  COMMITTEES     IGl 

Committees,  a  plasterer  by  trade,  who  had  ah*eady  written 
a  striking  pamphlet  on  the  Right  of  Search,  wrote  to  the 
Newcastle  Chronicle  a  letter  in  which,  after  specifying  the 
reasons  why,  at  that  particular  juncture,  England's  enemies 
should  wish  to  manacle  her  without  seeming  to  do  so, 
ended  by  saying : 

"The  interests  of  France  are  identical  with  those  of, 
England  in  this  matter,  as  there  is  good  reason  to  believe 
that  had  France  not  agreed  to  observe  the  Declaration  of 
Paris  the  late  war  between  her  and  Germany  would  have 
been  avoided,  as  was  the  contemplated  war  in  1867  by 
the  dread  of  France  exercising  her  Maritime  Power  on 
German  commerce.^  Prussia  expects  another  war  with 
France  and  wished  to  secure  the  certainty  of  success  by 
striking  off  one  of  her  arms." 

The  activities  of  the  Committees  were  this  year  (1874) 
stimulated  by  the  presence  of  David  Urquhart  in  England. 
For  twelve  years  the  magnetism  of  his  personality  had  been 
withdrawn  from  them,  and  all  his  health  had  allowed  him 
to  do  had  been  done  by  correspondence. 

At  a  large  meeting  of  the  Committees  at  Keighley,  he 
spoke  with  all  his  old  fire,  reminding  them  how  in  earlier 
days  he  traversed  England  from  end  to  end  to  find  the 
materials  out  of  which  the  Committees  were  formed : 

"  Here  a  weaver  in  a  garret  at  Paisley,  here  a  shoemaker 
in  a  Staffordshire  workshop,  there  a  factory  worker,  en- 
feebled by  his  long  hours  of  toil — such  were  the  men  with 
whom  almost  alone  in  England  I  found  I  could  work." 

He  went  step  by  step  through  the  history  of  Europe 
since  that  time  to  this  last  danger  threatened  by  the  Con- 
gress of  Brussels,  showing  how  year  by  year  events  had 
been  working  towards  one  end,  the  dominance  of  a  single 
Power  in  Europe. 

England  sent  a  representative  to  the  Congress  of  Brussels, 
but  with  instructions  i^ 

1  England  had  on  that  occasion  reminded  Germany  that  the 
Declaration  of  Paris  was  capable  of  abrogation. 

2  See  Diplomatic  Meview,  July,  1874. 

11 


162  DAVID  URQUHART 

"  To  take  no  share  in  the  discussion  on  the  rules  of  Inter- 
national Law  whereby  belligerents  are  guided,  and  to  under- 
take no  new  obligations  or  engagements  of  any  Idnd  witli 
regard  to  general  principles.  You  will  also  abstain,"  said 
the  instructions,  "  from  taking  part  in  any  discussions 
upon  any  points  which  may  be  brought  forward,  which 
may  appear  to  you  to  extend  to  general  principles  of  Inter- 
national Law  not  already  recognised  and  accepted." 

It  must  not  be  thought  that  the  Committees'  activities 
were  limited  to  the  matters  mentioned  in  this  chapter. 
There  was  no  affair  of  public  interest  in  which  they  did 
not  concern  themselves.  The  Boundary  Question,  the 
Newfoundland  Fisheries  dispute,  the  Danish  Succession,  the 
Question  of  the  Duchies,  the  American  Civil  War,  the 
Italian  Unification,  the  loss  of  the  Temporal  Power  of  the 
Pope,  Irish  Home  Rule,  and  the  never  dying  Eastern  Ques- 
tion— about  all  these  things  they  not  only  talked,  but  acted, 
and,  having  chosen  the  side  which  they  considered  that 
of  Law  and  Justice,  they  maintained  it  by  all  the  means 
at  their  disposal.  The  disasters  and  oppression  of  Poland 
and  the  fall  of  Circassia  were  to  them  personal  disgrace, 
and  matters  for  grief  and  tears.  In  the  Indian  Mutiny  they 
insisted  on  the  fact  that  the  wrongs  were  not  all  on  one 
side,  and  in  the  Persian  War  they  issued  a  bold  manifesto 
to  the  soldiers  about  to  be  engaged  in  it.  They  never 
hesitated  to  protest  against  any  measure,  or  proposed 
measure,  that  seemed  to  them  against  the  pubUc  Law. 
They  must  have  been  a  thorn  in  the  side  of  many  successive 
Ministers  of  the  Crown.  Of  their  method  of  deaUng  with 
such,  their  correspondence  with  Mr.  Gladstone  on  the 
Powers  of  the  Plenipotentiaries  in  the  Congress  of  Paris 
is  a  very  good  example.  They  never  allowed  themselves 
to  be  put  off  by  words,  but  always  insisted  on  a  clear  and 
definite  statement  of  facts  which  was  susceptible  of  proof. 
However  respectfully  they  put  a  question,  they  clearly 
indicated  that  it  was  asked  by  those  who  had  a  right  to 
ask  it.  And  they  administered  reproof  or  expressed  dis- 
approbation in  a  manner  which  must  have  been  excessively 
annoying  to  mid-Victorian  statesmen,   who  had  not  yet 


THE  AIMS  AND  WORK  OF  THE  COINOnTTEES     163 

learnt  that  they  were,  after  all,  but  the  servants  of  the 
people.^ 

^  The  work  of  the  Foreign  Affairs  Committees,  it  need  harcUy 
be  said,  did  not  pass  unnoticed  by  the  contemporary  Press. 

The  highest  tribute  paid  them  was  perhaps  the  bitter  scorn  and 
ridicule  which  were  heaped  upon  them  and  their  leader  by  the' 
papers  which  were  in  the  Government  interest. 

StiU,  many  were  the  honest  and  worthy  tributes  borne  to  them 
by  contemporary  journals. 

Such  is  the  following,  taken  from  the  Press  of  October  16,  1858: 

*'  The  Foreign  Affairs  Committees  in  the  North  of  England. 

"There  are  few  of  our  readers  but  must,  at  intervals,  have  ob- 
served in  the  newspapers  correspondences  between  the  bodies  which 
have  assumed  to  themselves  the  above  designation,  and  the  different 
members  of  the  past  and  present  Administration.  But  we  rather 
think  that,  nevertheless,  the  majority  of  our  readers  have  no  distinct 
idea  of  the  history  of  these  Committees,  or  of  their  organisation, 
their  composition,  and  their  objects.  Notwithstanding,  they  are 
by  no  means  unworthy  of  attention,  for  the  extent  of  their  organisa- 
tion forms  a  rather  remarkable  feature  in  our  present  social  position. 
When  we  tell  our  readers  that  in  some  seventy  of  the  principal  manu- 
facturing towns  in  this  country  these  Committees  meet  weekly, 
to  consider  the  state  of  our  foreign  relations — that  many  of  them 
have  obtained  an  extensive  knowledge  of  all  the  proceedings  of  our 
Foreign -oflfice  for  the  last  fifty  years,  and  that  they  discuss  the  merits 
of  those  proceedings  with  a  judgment  and  ability  which  would  do 
credit  to  many  a  member  of  the  Legislature — and  further  (what  is 
far  the  most  remarkable  circumstance  connected  with  them),  that 
they  are  composed  only  of  working  men,  obtaining  their  livelihood 
by  the  sweat  of  their  brow,  we  think  it  cannot  be  denied  that  it  is 
worth  the  whUe  of  the  public  to  know  somethtug  more  about  them 
than  is  generally  known  at  present. 

"  These  Committees,  then,  mainly  owe  their  existence  to  the  un- 
tiring energy  and  indomitable  perseverance  of  one  single  individual, 
who,  if  he  had  been  endowed  with  a  sound  judgment  and  a  power  of 
accurately  discerning  facts,  would,  with  such  instruments  as  these 
at  his  disposal,  have  long  ago  succeeded  in  making  a  deep  impres- 
sion on  the  public  mind.  Unfortunately,  however,  so  much  of  eccen- 
tricity has  pervaded  his  views,  so  hastily  has  he  brought  forward 
statements  which  would  not  bear  scrutiny,  that  he  has  given  to  his 
opponents  the  advantage  of  being  able  to  discredit  those  of  his 
principles  and  his  views  which  are,  in  fact,  wise  and  profound,  so 
that  truth  has  come  to  be  disregarded,  because  it  has  been  unfor- 
tunately largely  mingled  with  error.  Still,  whatever  may  be  his 
faults,  he  has  contrived  to  imbue  his  followers  with  as  right  and 
patriotic  sentiments  as  ever  animated  the  greatest  of  our  English 
statesmen. 

"  Now,  we  believe  that  there  are  at  present  very  few  individuals 
who  have  taken  the  trouble  really  to  master  the  true  nature  of  our 
dealings,  for  the  last  twenty-eight  years,  with  foreign  nations, 
whether  in  Europe  or  in  Asia,  but  have  arrived  at  this  conclusion— 
viz.,  that  most  of  the  wars  in  which,  since  1830,  England  has  been 


1G4  DAVID  URQUHART 

involved,  have  been  impolitic  and  unnecessary,  and,  what  is  far 
worse,  not  to  be  justified  in  their  origin,  when  tested  by  the  principles 
of  international  law.  Where  is  the  honest  man  who,  having  carefully 
looked  into  the  alleged  causes,  will  venture  to  defend  the  justice  of 
the  Afghan,  the  Burmese,  and  the  Chinese  wars?  Where  is  the 
wise  man  who,  after  having  weighed  their  consequences,  will  ven- 
ture to  affirm  that  they  were  beneficial  and  politic  ?  Unhappily, 
the  vast  majority  of  the  people  of  this  country  have  not  troubled 
tliemselves  with  these  matters.  They  have  borne  in  ignorant 
patience  the  increased  taxation  which  they  have  caused,  and  they 
have  been  content  to  take  for  granted  that  England  is  as  just  as 
she  is  glorious,  and  as  unselfish  as  she  is  great.  They  have  assumed 
without  inquiry  that  such  a  nation  would  never  engage  in  any  wars 
which  dire  necessity  had  not  forced  upon  her.  They  have  formed 
the  most  false  but  most  magnificent  notions  of  her  disinterested 
condiict,  and  have  been  able  to  listen  with  the  utmost  complacency 
to  the  declamation  of  her  statesmen  against  the  grasping  aggressions 
of  Russia,  without  a  suspicion  crossing  their  minds  that  the  indignant 
commentaries  which  were  directed  against  the  Czar  were  even  more 
applicable  to  her  own  aggressions. 

"  Now,  the  up-hill  and  ungracious  task  which  these  Committees 
have  set  themselves  has  been  to  arouse  their  countrymen  to  a  just 
sense  of  these  our  national  delinquencies,  to  wake  them  from  the 
day-dream  of  innocence  in  which  they  have  too  long  indulged,  and 
to  get  them  to  view  the  national  policy  of  this  country  as  it  is  too 
surely  viewed  by  the  more  impartial  optics  of  neighbouring  nations. 
Their  one  single  cry  is:  '  Let  us  procure  the  re-establishment  of  law 
throughout  the  world;  let  us  only  behold  our  country  once  more 
acting  as  the  asserter,  and  not  the  violator,  of  international  law, 
and  we  shall  be  content.  We  care  comparatively  little  for  Reform, 
for  the  Ballot,  for  Free  Trade,  or  for  any  other  of  the  popular  cries 
which  politicians  have  raised;  but  we  do  care  for  the  honour  and  the 
good  faith  of  our  country,  and  we  can  live  happy  if  we  can  but  see 
it  restored.' 

"  kSucIi  is  the  language  tha^  for  some  three  or  four  years  has  been 
heard  to  issue  from  the  lips  of  working  men— men  with  rough  hands, 
and  with  rude  address — men  who  once  clamoured  for  the  Charter 
and  the  Ballot,  but  whose  language  now  reaches  the  pitch  of  patriotic 
eloquence,  and  whose  honesty  of  sentiment  is  worthy  of  the  noblest 
legislator  that  ever  addressed  the  Parliament  of  England. 

"  It  may  be  tr\xe  that  these  Committees  apjiear  sometimes  to  be 
acting  in  a  sphere  for  which  they  are  not  fitted;  but  it  is  not  to  be 
wondered  at  that  men  in  their  position  of  life  should  sometimes 
blunder,  and  should  venture  on  inquiries  which  perhaps  they  may 
be  hardly  justified  in  addressing  to  official  persons.  Unskilled  in  the 
business  and  duties  of  the  Executive,  they  may  sometimes  ask  ques- 
tions which  those  of  whom  they  ask  them  may  fairly  meet  by  curt, 
and  merely  formal,  answers.  But  all  this  is  the  mere  by-play  of  the 
part  which  they  are  acting.  The  task  which  they  have  set  themselves 
is  to  create  an  interest,  in  the  public  mind  of  the  great  manufacturing 
towns,  in  foreign  affairs.  They  believe,  and  siirely  their  belief  is  a 
true  one,  that  the  internal  prosperity  of  this  great  nation  is  deeply 
affected  by  the  management,  or  the  mismanagement,  of  our  external 
relations;  that  every  man  throiighout  the  country  is  affected  more 
or  less  by  the  expenditure  occasioned  by  expensive  wars,  carried 


THE  AIMS  AND  WORK  OF  THE  COMMITTEES    165 

on  at  a  distance,  on  unjustifiable  pretences,  and  for  the  attainment  of 
very  doubtful  advantages.  They  believe  that  each  individual 
subject  of  the  Queen  ought  to  feel  interested  in  England  being  the 
nation  to  stand  forth  as  the  doer  of  justice,  and  the  upholder  of  inter- 
national law;  and  they  know  too  well,  and  they  desire  to  impart  the 
knowledge  to  others,  that,  under  the  guidance  of  Lord  Palmerston, 
England  lost  her  fair  fame,  and  appeared  before  the  world  as  a  nation 
defiant  of  law,  blustering  to  the  weak,  and  truckling  to  the  strong. 
"  Such  is  the  character,  such  the  objects  of  '  The  Committees  of 
Foreign  Aflairs.'  Had  they  not  been  composed  of  working  men, 
and  had  they  not  afforded  evidence  of  what  working  men  are 
capable  of,  we  perhaps  should  not  have  thought  it  necessary  to  give 
our  readers  this  insight  into  their  organisation  and  objects." 


CHAPTER  VIII 

WHY   THE    COMMITTEES    SUCCEEDED    AND    WHY    THEY 

FAILED 

"  I  give  you  the  end  of  a  golden  string, 
Only  wind  it  into  a  ball; 
It  wiU  lead  you  in  at  Heaven's  Gate, 
Bunt  in  Jerusalem's  Wall." 

Blake:  Jerusalem. 

The  study  of  the  Committees  presents  two  main  points 
of  difficulty  :  why  they  lasted  so  long  and  why  they 
ultimately  failed. 

Why  was  it  possible  for  Societies  which  made  an  ap- 
parently impossible  demand  upon  the  character,  disin- 
terestedness, dihgence,  and  self-denial  of  ordinary  working 
men,  which  required  that  they  should  practise  virtues  that 
seem  heroic,  give  themselves  up  to  Herculean  labours, 
expose  themselves  to  ridicule  from  their  fellows  and  perse- 
cution from  their  employers,  for  what  they  must  have 
gradually  come  to  realise  to  be  a  forlorn  hope  and  to  main- 
tain themselves  for  more  than  twenty  years  at  the  same 
high  level  of  work  and  character  ?  It  is  almost  impossible 
to  imagine  the  worldng  men  of  our  own  day  acting  thus 
as  apostles  and  witnesses,  not  only  without  the  supj)ort  of 
their  own  class,  but  in  many  cases  in  spite  of  its  strenuous 
opposition. 

For  these  Societies  were,  as  we  have  seen,  by  no  means 
academic.  These  men  were  not  theorists  or  members  of 
study-circles,  who  sat  and  talked  about  Reconstruction. 
They  were  active  apostles  and  missionaries.  Their  field 
of  operations  extended  from  the  Queen  and  her  Ministers 
to  the  man  who  worked  next  to  them  at  the  carpenter's 
bench,  or  in  the  shoemaker's  shop,  to  their  comrades  in 
the  factory  or  the  workshop.  They  were  prepared  to  lose 
then'  work,  and,  as  then'  letters  show,  sometimes  did  so, 

166 


WHY  COMMITTEES  SUCCEEDED  AND  FAILED    167 

rather  than  cease  to  preach  to  their  fellows  what  they 
deemed  vital  to  the  life  and  welfare  of  the  nation. 

But  what  seems  strange  is  perhaps,  after  all,  very  natural* 
It  was  on  these  very  things  that  the  life  of  the  Committees 
depended;  for  when  all  is  said  and  done,  life  feeds  on 
struggles,  hardness,  difficulties,  opposition.  The  life  which 
is  reared  on  softness,  which  goes  with  its  eyes  fixed  on  more 
food,  more  leisure,  more  amusements,  higher  wages  and 
less  to  do  for  them,  is  a  "  ghastly  smooth  life,  dead  at 
heart."     It  is  no  life  for  the  spirit  of  man. 

When  we  think  of  the  working  men  of  the  Chartist  times, 
with  their  scant  food,  their  poor  lodgings,  their  long  hours 
of  toil,  and  contrast  them  with  the  working  men  of  our 
own  day,  who  seem,  though  happily  with  notable  exceptions, 
whoUy  absorbed  in  bettering  the  material  conditions  of 
their  own  class,  it  is  impossible  not  to  be  alarmed  at  the 
apparent  decUne  of  character  and  ideals. 

There  is  no  doubt  that  a  powerful  element  in  the  success 
of  the  Committees  was  Urquhart's  own  personality,  intense 
conviction,  and  deep  mystical  insight. 

Such  men  as  he  have  often  been  found  leading  religious 
movements,  but  few,  like  him,  leading  a  movement  in 
which  the  world  saw  only  a  political  one.  David  Urquhart 
has  been  called  by  one  of  his  own  children  a  "  mystic  in 
politics."  He  was  truly  so  if  to  politics  we  give  its  proper 
meaning,  the  art  of  living  in  the  State.  Rightly  to  conduct 
oneself  in  the  State  was  necessary  to  the  character  of  a 
Christian.  This  the  world  had  forgotten,  and  this  Urquhart 
held  it  to  be  his  mission  to  teach  it. 

He  saw  perfect  Justice  with  the  inward  vision  of  the  mystic. 
He  saw  it  as  beautiful  in  its  severity  as  in  its  tenderness. 

And  he  saw  Injustice  let  loose  on  the  world,  soft  where 
it  should  have  been  stern,  or  cruel  where  it  should  have  been 
mild.  He  saw  that  Injustice,  that  apotheosis  of  material 
force,  incarnate  in  the  person  of  Russia.  So  Russia  became 
his  anti-Christ,  his  Dragon,  and  Urquhart  girt  his  loins 
like  Athanasius,  or  even  more  like  Savonarola,  to  do  battle 
with  the  Dragon.  Like  slayers  of  Dragons  in  all  times  he 
saw  the  Dragon's  slime  everywhere,  he  felt  its  hot  breath 
poUuthig  the  air  of  Heaven,  he  marked  its  mangled  and  i?lain 


168  DAVID  URQUHART 

victims,  until  his  soul  was  full  of  rage  and  pity,  and  for 
him  there  were  only  two  things  in  the  world,  God  and  the 
Dragon. 

Perhaps  it  is  the  influence  of  St.  George  which  makes 
Englishmen  followers  of  Dragon-slayers. 

Certainly  men  followed  Urquhart,  not  the  less  wilUngly 
because  he  sought  to  slay  the  Dragon  in  themselves  as 
well  as  in  the  world.  He  had  all  the  faults  of  Dragon- 
slayers;  he  could  see  nothing  but  the  Dragon;  everywhere 
he  found  its  traces.  He  had  all  the  extravagances,  the 
intolerance,  the  recklessness,  that  mark  his  kind. 

Sometimes  he  attacked  the  Dragon  where  no  Dragon 
was.  But  his  followers  were  not  daunted  by  such  things. 
For  he  had  the  inward  vision,  he  never  failed  of  his  con- 
victions or  singleness  of  purpose.  All  his  life  he  never 
ceased  to  be,  to  a  few  chosen  spirits,  the  "  sent  of  God." 

Moreover  he  appealed  to  the  highest  that  was  in  a  man. 
He  had  a  way  peculiar  to  those  who  have  suffered  in  the 
flesh,  as  Urquhart  had  in  his  early  years,  of  ignoring  material 
things.  Shortness  of  food,  want  of  rest,  excessive  toil — • 
all  these  things,  what  were  they  ?  A  man  could  rise  above 
them,  so  long  as  his  heart  was  pure.  Hunger  and  cold  and 
pain,  what  were  they  ?  He  could,  and  did,  teach  his  own 
young  children  to  bear  them.  Even  want  of  education  and 
grinding  toil  could  not  interfere  with  the  real  man,  so  long 
as  he  was  just,  pure  and  honourable. 

The  working  men  to  whom  this  high  and  unique  appeal 
was  made,  by  this  man  whose  words  were  all  acts,  answered 
it  with  an  alacrity  and  a  joy  unimaginable  by  those  who 
do  not  know  the  heights  there  are  in  unspoilt  or  regenerate 
human  nature. 

But  perhaps  the  strongest  appeal  which  Urquhart  made 
to  the  working  men  of  the  Committees  was  that  he  took 
for  granted  that  they  were  the  very  soul  and  mind  of  the 
body  pohtic.  What  were  the  powers  of  the  men  who  had 
a  vote,  compared  with  those  of  the  men  who,  day  by  day, 
in  season  and  out  of  season,  were  bringing  the  highest 
principles  of  Law  and  Justice  to  bear  upon  the  actions  of 
the  State,  who  were  constantly  arraigning  statesmen  and 
their  actions  before  the  bar  of  the  supreme  Justice,  and 


WHY  COMMITTEES  SUCCEEDED  AND  FAILED     169 

who,  having  cast  aside  every  desire  of  self -aggrandisement, 
self-interest,  and  even  class -interest,  were  concerned  only 
that  their  country  should  stand  forth  among  the  nations 
as  the  lover  of  Truth  and  the  doer  of  Justice  ? 

These  men  had  reached  the  Land  of  Liberty,  the  liberty 
of  the  spirit,  and  they  had  no  desire  to  return  to  the  bondage 
of  the  world. 

It  is,  however,  undeniable  that  the  men  to  whom  such  an 
appeal  could  be  successfully  made  were  comparatively  few. 
It  is  the  tragedy  of  every  great  idea  that  it  must  be 
content  either  to  descend  to  the  level  of  the  many,  or  to 
make  its  appeal  to  a  minority  which  can,  in  the  eyes  of  the 
world,  be  ignored. 

The  Franciscan  Order  must  have  come  to  an  end  had  the 
great  idea  of  its  founder  been  retained  in  all  its  height  and 
grandeur. 

Savonarola's  company  could  not  exist  in  the  midst  of  a 
naughty  world  after  its  first  enthusiasm  was  past.  All  the 
great  ideas  that  have  prevailed  and  endured  have  been  con- 
tent to  put  off  their  "  extravagances,"  as  the  world  persists 
in  calUng  them,  or  have  been  obliged  to  be  content  to  appeal 
to  a  few.  The  Church  herself  must  let  the  greater  number 
go  a  lower  way,  and  bind  only  a  few  to  the  Counsels  of 
Perfection. 

Urquhart  was  bound  to  fail,  because  he  would  not,  or 
could  not,  recognise  this.  The  command,  "  Be  ye  perfect," 
was,  he  maintained,  a  command  to  all.  But  it  is  only  the 
few  who  really  hunger  after  perfection:  it  is  only  to  the 
elect  that  it  makes  its  irresistible  appeal. 

Therefore  Urquhart  failed  utterly  to  impress  his  creed 
upon  the  thousands  of  working  men  whom  he  addressed  at 
his  crowded  meetings  in  the  early  days  of  the  Committees. 

The  few,  it  is  true,  accepted  it  then,  and  to  the  end  of  his 
life,  but  there  was  no  prophet  to  take  up  the  mantle  which, 
dying,  he  cast  off.  Few  of  the  Foreign  Affairs  Committees 
survived  him  more  than  a  few  years. 

But  there  were  secondary  causes  which,  even  during  his 
hfetime,   had    contributed   to   the   partial    failure    of    the 
Committees. 
At  their  highest  point  they  never  numbered  more  than 


170  DAVID  URQUHART 

about  one  hundred  and  fifty,  with  a  total  of  working-class 
membership  of  certainly  not  more  than  two  or  three 
thousand.  Their  moral  effect  was,  however,  far  greater 
than  their  numbers  warranted.  They  had  a  real  influence 
on  the  pubHc  opinion,  not  alone  of  the  working  classes,  but 
also  of  the  towns  and  villages  where  they  established 
themselves. 

Yet  they  were  failures.  By  the  great  mass  of  the  working 
men  they  were  considered  impracticable  and  singular. 
The  "  Committee-men  "  were  not  interested  in  the  ordinary 
working-class  interests,  in  Trades  Unions,  votes,  labour 
legislation.  Like  their  master,  they  pushed  these  things 
aside  as  something  of  quite  minor  importance,  and  the 
ordinary  worldng  man  regarded  them  as  belonging  to 
the  Conservative  party.  The  simple  fact  was  that  he  could 
not  beUeve  in,  or  even  realise,  men  without  party  spirit 
orclass  aims. 

The  Committees  offered  no  material  inducements;  they 
demanded  hard  work,  sacrifice  of  time  and  leisure,  and  even 
money. 

Membership  in  them  carried  no  benefits;  instead  it 
involved  j)ersonal  inconvenience  for  causes  which,  to  the 
bulk  of  worldng  men,  grew  year  by  year  to  be  of  less  im- 
portance. Year  by  year  it  became  more  difficult  to  interest 
them  in  matters  of  international  importance. 

In  part  this  was  no  doubt  due  to  the  gradual  loss  of 
character  among  the  people,  which  Urquhart  had  predicted, 
and  which  old  Frost  the  Chartist  saw  when  he  returned  to 
England  from  his  transportation  to  AustraUa. 

"  I  have  returned  to  England,"  he  said,  "  to  discover  that 
that  class  of  men  who,  twenty  years  ago,  were  the  only 
ones  capable  of  entertaining  a  vigorous  thought,  or  of 
approving  that  thought  by  a  daring  act,  have  now  become 
the  partisans  and  abettors  of  the  crimes  of  men  in  authority, 
even  when  these  men  do  not  require  their  aid,  and  perhaps 
have  not  even  thought  it  worth  while  to  purchase  their 
assistance.  No  disaster  befalhng  our  arms  or  our  power 
in  India,  nor  the  prospective  loss  of  that  magnificent 
Empire,  nor  the  perfidies  that  have  soiled  the  British  name 
in  those  deeds  of  civil  administration  which  have  produced 
the  danger,  can  strike  with  so  heavy  a  blow  at  the  heart  of 


WHY  COMMITTEES  SUCCEEDED  AND  EAILED     171 

a  patriot,  as  this  exhibition  of  cowardice  and  degradation 
in  men  of  that  humble  class  of  society,  from  whose  in- 
dignant virtue  hope  alone  could  spring,  when  those  placed 
above  them  had  neglected  their  public  duties."^ 

A  great  change  was  gradually  coming  over  England.  The 
grinding  oppression  and  the  poverty  which  had  weighed 
down  the  working  classes  were  slowly  but  surely  lessening. 
Each  year  then-  material  lot  grew  hghter,  and  the  tendency 
was  to  grasp  all  that  was  given,  to  stretch  out  their  hands 
for  more,  and  to  forget  all  else. 

The  justice  or  injustice  of  foreign  relations  meant  less 
and  less  to  them  as  bread  got  cheaper,  work  more  plentiful, 
and  wages  higher.  The  huge  armaments  which  were  pihng 
up  all  over  Europe  did  not  trouble  them.  They  did  not 
realise  that  they  were  being  taxed  for  their  upkeep. 

The  Chartist  newspapers  of  the  days  of  the  rising  were 
full  of  the  increase  in  taxation  for  the  support  of  standing 
armies.  But  in  1870,  when  they  had  increased  three  and 
fourfold,  the  worldng  men  looked  upon  them  with  in- 
difference. Europe  drifted  ever  nearer  to  the  edge  of  the 
abyss,  but  they  saw  it  not;  the  claims,  the  desires,  the 
wrongs  of  labour  filled  their  whole  horizon,  and  it  is  doubt- 
ful whether  any  leader,  even  one  less  exaggerated,  more 
commonplace,  more  of  then  own  world,  could  have  induced 
them  to  see  that  their  prosperity  ultimately  depended  on 
questions  of  International  Justice  and  Law. 

Probably  Urquhart  would  have  gained  more  adherents 
had  he  given  so-called   Labour   aims   more   place   in  his 

1  This  letter  was  written  to  Reynolds'  News'pa'per,  after  a  meeting 
held  at  the  London  Tavern  to  protest  against  the  proposed  abolition 
of  the  East  India  Company,  at  which  the  working  men  took  the  side 
of  the  Government,  and  howled  down  Frost.  Frost  goes  on  to  say- 
in  the  same  letter: 

"  Simultaneously  with  the  discovery  I  have  above  narrated,  I 
have  made  another  of  an  opposite  character.  I  have  discovered 
that  during  my  absence  and  seclusion  there  have  been  found  among 
the  Chartists  men  willing  and  capable  to  apply  their  minds  to  those 
great  and  solemn  matters  which  arise  in  an  imperUIed  State,  and  I 
trust  that  by  the  publication  of  this  letter  you  wiU  afford  me  the 
opportunity  of  conveying  to  them  my  resolution  to  devote  my  best 
energies  to  rescuing  this  land  out  of  the  hands  of  those  bad  men  who 
have  brought  her  to  the  present  condition  of  great  peril." 

Frost  here  refers  to  the  F. A.  Committees,  with  which  henceforward 
he  worked.  He  settled  down  in  Bristol  and  became  known  as  an 
"  Urquhartite  "  and  a  Tory. 


172  DAVID  URQUHART 

programme.  Instead  of  which  he  almost  passionately 
refused  to  consider  them.  "  Class  "  politics  he  condemned 
as  ruthlessly  as  party  politics.  Earlier  in  his  Ufe  he  had 
pointed  out  how  domestic  distress  and  International  Justice 
were  connected,  but  the  working  men  wanted  to  be  told, 
not  alone  how  distress  followed  injustice,  but  how  the 
opportunity,  which  they  intensely  and  rightly  desired,  for 
a  happy  and  satisfactory  hfe  would  follow  in  the  wake  of 
International  Justice.  Urquhart  had  never  really  appre- 
ciated their  craving  for  at  least  a  moderate  degree  of  com- 
fort and  leisure.  He  had  never  cared  for  those  things 
himself,  and  he  could  not  understand  why  they  should 
mean  so  much  to  other  people. 

Moreover,  from  the  time  of  the  Indian  Mutiny,  when  he 
took  a  line  emphatically  not  that  of  his  countrymen, 
Urquhart  became  more  and  more  alienated  from  the  people 
of  England,  and  his  followers  had  to  bear  his  reproach. 
The  word  "  Urquhartite  "  was  a  name  of  scorn,  it  stood  for 
reaction,  for  singularity,  for  everything  un-Enghsh;  it  was 
opposed  to  the  magic  Shibboleths  "  Progress,  CiviUsation, 
Reform,"  to  everything  for  which  Cobden  and  Bright  and 
Gladstone  stood. 

So  long  had  he  talked  of  danger,  while  England  seemed 
closely  wrapped  in  peace  and  security,  that  to  the  popular 
mind  he  had  become  as  one  crying  "  Wolf,  wolf  !"  when 
there  was  no  wolf. 

If  pohticians  of  wider  outlook  saw  the  black  muzzle 
ready  to  devour  them,  they  said  nothing  to  dispel  the 
pleasant  dreams  in  which  their  countrymen  Jay  wrapped. 

Now  the  danger  so  long  threatened  is  on  us,  the  working 
men  have  awakened  to  some  sense  of  the  responsibility  in 
regard  to  their  country,  and  it  seems  to  some  of  us  high 
time  for  Urquhart  to  be  vindicated. 

It  is  impossible,  however,  to  overlook  the  fact  that  in 
part  the  failure  of  the  Committees  was  due  to  Urquhart 
himself.  He  was  indeed  more  fitted  to  be  the  leader  of 
a  forlorn  hope,  to  champion  a  failing  cause  at  a  great  crisis, 
than  to  lead  ordinary  men  in  everyday  life.  His  very 
belief  in  the  power  of  men  to  be  right  made  him  intolerant 
of  any  wrong;  and  when  wrong  was  done  he  included  the 


WHY  COMMITTEES  SUCCEEDED  AND  FAILED     173 

deed  and  the  doer  in  the  same  condemnation,  and  refused 
to  have  anything  to  do  with  either.  The  Christian  practice 
of  separating  the  sin  from  the  sinner  did  not  exist  for  him. 
He  was  a  prophet  of  the  Old  Testament  in  this  as  in  all 
else:  Achan  and  the  accursed  thing  were  involved  in  one 
common  destruction.  The  weakness  of  human  nature  awoke 
in  him  not  pity,  but  anger  and  contempt.  The  failure  of 
man  to  do  what  he  knew  was  right,  ignorance  and  sloth 
were  to  him  as  the  sins  of  injustice  and  untruth,  and  any 
attempt  to  excuse  them  increased  their  guilt  tenfold. 

This  very  refusal  to  allow  a  man  to  justify  himself  raised 
a  barrier  between  Urquhart  and  the  men  who  wished  to 
follow  him;  many  of  them  fell  away  from  him,  because  they 
could  not  express  themselves  freely  to  him.  The  principle 
of  "  Either  you  were  right  and  must  show  yourself  to  have 
been  right,  or  you  are  wrong  and  must  admit  it,"  does  not 
always  hold  good,  and  the  working  men,  though  they  could 
not  explain  the  reasons  for  this  knowledge,  knew  that  it 
did  not.  They  were  no  match  for  him  in  the  power  of 
argument  and  in  eloquence,  and  were  silent,  but  they  were 
unconvinced  of  the  truth  of  his  reasoning.  They  lacked 
the  philosophy  to  see  that  both  sides  were  right,  that  while 
for  them  and  for  most  people  there  must  be  a  middle  course 
between  the  perfection  they  could  appreciate,  but  to  which 
they  could  not  yet  attain,  and  the  evil  which  they  hated 
but  could  not  altogether  avoid,  such  a  via  media  did  not 
exist  for  him. 

The  difference  between  Urquhart  and  the  ordinary  man 
was  the  difference  which  exists  between  a  saint  and  an 
everyday  Christian  in  respect  of  sin.  The  saint  puts  it 
away  at  once  and  for  all  with  so  strong  a  hand  that  it  has 
no  more  hold  over  him.  But  with  most  of  us  it  is  not  so. 
Our  feeble  push  is  so  feeble  that  it  comes  back  again  and 
again,  and  we  seem  to  steer  a  middle  course  between  good 
and  evil. 

Urquhart  once  and  for  all  fought  back  what  he  had  dis- 
covered to  be  sin,  and  never  afterwards  yielded  a  step  to 
its  attacks.  "It  is  my  daily  and  hourly  endeavour  to  be 
a  Christian,"  he  said — "  that  is,  to  have  a  right  judgment 
in   a'l   things."     He   could   not   understand   that   an   en- 


174  DAVID  URQUHART 

deavour  which  never  relaxed  could  fail.  Failure  meant  lack 
of  endeavour,  and  therefore  every  defeat  was  a  matter, 
not  for  excuse  or  palliation,  but  for  shame  and  repentance. 
This  position  not  only  had  the  effect  of  creating  a  barrier 
between  himself  and  many  of  the  working  men,  it  gave  to 
outsiders  an  entirely  erroneous  impression  that  Urquhart 
was  "  cock-sure."  The  absolute  conviction  which  he  had 
of  the  justice  and  truth  of  his  course  and  his  own  imperative 
duty  to  maintain  it  against  all  the  world,  seemed  to  super- 
ficial observers  a  belief  in  his  own  infallibility.  So  that 
which  made  largely  for  his  own  strength  helped  to  contribute 
to  the  failure  of  his  purpose.^ 

^  The  following  extract  from  Lord  Lamington's  In  the  Days  of  the 
Dandies,  published  in  1890,  is  an  indication  of  the  bewilderment 
which  Urquhart  caused  to  the  ordinarily  intelligent  men  of  his  time, 
and  this  in  spite  of  the  admiration  they  could  not  withhold. 

Just  as  the  East,  with  its  apparently  flaming  contradictions, 
still  remains  an  insoluble  enigma  to  the  West — so  was  it  with  Urquhart 
and  his  contemporaries. 

"There  were  a  great  number  of  people,"  says  Lord  Lamington,  "  and 
those  men  of  ability  and  consideration,  who  regarded  Urquhart  as 
a  prophet — as  the  founder  of  a  new  dispensation.  His  was  a  strange 
career.  He  was  Secretary  at  Constantinople  during  Lord  Ponsonby's 
embassy;  he  then  adopted  quite  the  Oriental  life,  and  his  influence 
entirely  superseded  the  ambassador's.  This  led  to  violent  scenes, 
and  Urquhart  was  recalled;  this  was  in  the  reign  of  William  IV.,  who 
became  acquainted  with  Urquhart,  and  at  once  was  subject  to  his 
influence.  Had  the  King  lived,  that  influence  would  have  affected 
any  Government.  At  this  time,  the  Portfolio,  a  collection  of  docu- 
ments on  foreign  affairs,  was  edited  and  written  by  Urquhart.  It 
produced  a  great  sensation  in  the  diplomatic  world,  not  only  by  the 
new  light  it  threw  on  many  political  and  social  questions,  but  from 
the  keen  observations  and  ability  of  the  writer.  It  contained  from 
time  to  time  passages  of  singular  beauty  and  remarkable  foresight. 

"  I  remember  when  he  foretold  our  terrible  Afghanistan  disasters 
of  1841,  he  wrote  (I  quote  from  memory):  '  I  warn  you  in  this  mid- 
night of  your  intoxication,  a  day-dawn  of  sorrow  is  at  hand;  and, 
although  my  voice  is  now  raised  in  vain,  and  my  words  find  no  respon- 
sive echo  in  your  hearts,  they  will  sink  into  your  spirits  when  they 
are  broken  and  subdued  by  misfortune.' 

"His  chief  work.  The  Spirit  of  the  East,  possesses  great  merit.  He 
was  entirely  master  of  the  Eastern  question;  and  on  his  own  evidence, 
like  the  poet,  he  wandered  eastward,  not  now  and  then,  but  in  his 
daily  life.  His  house  at  Watford  (Rickmansworth)  was  an  Eastern 
palace,  with  a  Turkish  bath  (for  it  was  Mr.  Urquhart  who  introduced 
Turkish  baths  into  this  country),  which  in  luxuriousness  was  inferior 
to  none  in  Constantinople.  .  .  . 

"  He  expended  all  the  fortune  he  inherited,  and  the  large  sums 
he  received  from  his  many  followers,  on  missions  and  couriers  to 
all  parts  of  the  world.  Through  him  the  world  was  to  be  renewed. 
Never  was  a  greater  instance  how  faith  in  oneself  can  affect  others. 


WHY  COMMITTEES  SUCCEEDED  AND  FAILED     175 

Another  contributing  cause  of  failure  was  the  violence  of 
Urquhart's  own  temper.  Everyone  who  came  into  contact 
with  him,  whether  in  pubUc  or  private  life,  suffered  from  it. 
Sometimes  he  simulated  passionate  wrath,  of  set  purpose, 
to  provoke  antagonism  fierce  enough  to  dethrone  indifference 
and  force  his  intended  convert  to  meet  him  in  the  open  field. 

But,  apart  from  this,  David  Urquhart  was  naturally 
passionate,  impatient  of  contradiction,  destructive  of  all 
that  opposed  him.  His  temper  was  part  of  his  physical 
equipment.  An  organisation  of  the  most  sensitive  and 
a  brain  particularly  active  were  combined  with  a  strong 
tendency  to  a  malady  which  always  lay  in  wait  for  him,  and 
was  always  threatening  to  overtake  him.  He  spent  days  and 
nights  racked  with  pain,  for  which  he  found  no  rehef  except 
in  the  Turkish  bath.^  It  is  probable  that  complete  self- 
control  was  an  impossibihty  to  him.  Sometimes  he  would 
behave  with  the  most  astonishing  gentleness,  patience,  and 
self-restraint  under  the  most  flagrant  rudeness  and  insolence, 
and  would  take  the  trouble  to  argue  with  people  whom 
most  men  would  have  treated  with  the  contempt  of  silence. 

On  another  occasion  the  least  opf»osition  would  rouse  him 
to  real  violence,  and  he  would  terrify  the  worldng  men,  as 
he  did  his  own  children,  by  sudden  outbursts  of  passion. 
The  men  and  women  of  his  own  class  fared  no  better. 
People  who  had  devoted  themselves  and  their  fortunes  to 
the  work,  who  had  sacrificed  their  friends  and  health,  and 
who  gave  to  their  leader  the  most  unswerving  loyalty  and 
almost  passionate  devotion,  were  content  if  now  and  then 
a  word  of  praise  sweetened  the  many  bitter  potions  of 
criticism  on  work,  conduct,  and  character  which  he  ad- 
ministered. Some  of  them  made  long  journeys  to  his 
Savoy  retreat,  only  to  be  taken  to  task  most  sternly;  some 

Altliougli  lie  lias  long  passed  away  from  public  life,  liis  memory 
survives  among  many  who  are  interested  in  foreign  affairs. 

"The  Foreign  Affairs  Committees  of  Newcastle  and  many  large 
towns  still  exist,  and  have  not  lost  faith  in  the  great  master,  with 
whom  they  were  always  in  constant  communication.  .  .  ." 

1  Wherever  he  lived  he  had  a  Tmkish  bath,  which  was  not  only 
for  the  use  of  himself  and  his  household,  but  whoever  amongst  the 
working  men  he  thought  might  be  benefited  by  it.  At  his  mountain 
house  in  Savoy  the  bath  was  open  to  all  the  peasants  and  moun- 
taineers who  cared  to  use  it. 


176  DAVID  URQUHART 

spent  money  like  water,  only  to  be  told  they  had  not  given 
enough;  some  journeyed  East  and  West  and  North  and 
South  on  the  mission  of  their  leader,  only  to  be  accused 
of  half-heartedness  in  the  cause.  Collet,  who  had  led  a  hfe 
of  effort  in  the  interests  of  the  freedom  of  the  Press,  was 
constantly  rated  like  a  schoolboy  for  mistakes  and  failures 
in  the  difficult  task  of  editing  the  Diplomatic  Review. 

Yet  to  most  of  his  adherents,  to  the  end  of  his  Ufe, 
Urquhart  was  the  Bey,  the  Chief,  the  Prophet,  almost 
the  "  sent  of  God."  To  his  own  Uttle  daughter  dreaming 
of  her  father,  suffering  as  he  often  did  hard  speeches  and 
contemptuous  treatment  at  the  hands  of  those  to  whom 
his  poUtical  justice  and  truth  was  a  continual  reproach, 
it  did  not  seem  strange  that  that  same  father  should 
change  after  the  strange  fashion  of  dreams,  into  the  Christ. 
"  It  is  really  the  same  thing,  is  it  not,  mother  ?"  she  said. 

Yet  even  to  his  children  Urquhart  showed  no  softness. 
He  was  as  stern  in  his  demands  on  them  as  on  his  disciples. 
If  he  visited  their  beds  when  they  were  asleep,  to  see  if  he 
could  detect  in  their  faces  traces  of  the  passionate  temper 
that  was  the  result  of  his  own  ill-health,  they  never  knew. 
They  could  not  tell  that  it  hurt  him  when  they  hushed 
their  play  as  he  came  near.  They  could  not  recognise  the 
signs  of  the  a' ways  sensitive  affection  of  his  nature,  an 
affection  not  less  real  because  so  sternly  held  in  check. 
What  wonder  that  a  nature  so  repressed  should  be  an 
enigma  to  all  around,  that  a  life  spent  always  in  harness 
on  the  battlefield  should  seem  to  fail  on  the  human  side  ? 

And  yet,  in  the  human  heart,  deep  always  calls  to  deep. 
The  affection  and  courage  and  passion  for  goodness  of  that 
great  heart  did  cry  aloud.  His  passionate  assertion  that 
perfection  was  possible  called  out  the  craving  for  it  in 
others.  Even  those  who  did  not  understand  were  attracted. 
His  friends  of  whatever  class,  in  their  deepest  anger  against 
him,  were  often  held  to  him  by  bonds  they  could  not  break. 

He  made  enormous  demands  on  all  with  whom  he  came 
in  contact,  and  those  demands  the  Elect  could  not  resist, 
for  they  were  made  in  the  name  of  Perfection. 


PART  III 

HOW   HE   WENT   TO    ROME   TO   BRING   JUSTICE 
DOWN  FROM  HEAVEN 

"  Filii  tui  de  longe  venient." — Isaiah  Ix. 

"  He  lives  detached  days; 
He  servetli  not  for  praise; 
For  gold 
He  is  uot  sold. 

"  Deaf  is  he  to  world's  tongue; 
He  scorneth  for  his  song 
The  loud 
Shouts  of  the  crowd. 

"  He  asketh  not  world's  eyes; 
Not  to  world's  ears  he  cries; 
Saith,  '  These 
Shut,  if  you  please.' 

"  He  measureth  world's  pleasure. 
World's  ease,  as  Saints  might  measure; 
For  hire 
Just  love  entire 

"  He  asks,  not  grudging  pain; 
And  knows  his  asking  vain. 
And  cries — 
'  Love  !  Love  !'  and  dies, 

"  In  guerdon  of  long  duty, 
Unowned  by  Love  or  Beauty.'* 

Francis  Thomson  :  To  the  Dead  Cardinal 
of  Westminster. 


12 


CHAPTER  IX 
URQUHART   AND    HIS    EARLIER    RELATIONS    TO    ROME 

"  A  city  set  on  a  hill." 

It  was  in  1839,  when  England  was  on  the  brink  of  a  Chartist 
rising  more  serious,  as  Urquhart  beheved,  than  people 
generally  imagined,  that  his  mind,  in  its  search  for  some 
strong  international  Power  founded  on  Law  and  able  to 
combat  the  prevaihng  lawlessness,  seems  to  have  first 
Ughted  upon  the  Society  of  Jesus. 

One  evening,  when  he  and  some  of  his  friends  were  dis- 
cussing the  situation  with  Cardo  and  Warden,  there  chanced 
to  come  in 

"  some  gentlemen  lately  arrived  from  Munich,  one  of  them 
a  Mr.  Bamfield,  Librarian  to  the  King  of  Bohemia,  who 
stated  that  great  alarm  existed  throughout  Germany,  and 
indeed  throughout  Europe,  at  the  progress  and  power  of 
Russia,  and  that  a  national  organisation  was  forming  to 
oppose  her.  ...  Mr.  Urquhart  made  some  remarks  with 
reference  to  the  Jesuits,  to  the  effect  that  they  might  be 
led  to  abandon  the  small  objects  they  had  in  view,  for  those 
far  greater  and  nobler  ends  if  they  once  understood  them; 
and  that  as  an  organised  body,  powerful  and  intelUgent, 
unless  they  were  led  to  employ  their  talents  and  their 
power  to  oppose  Russia,  they  would  be  made  to  employ 
them,  as  they  now  unconsciously  did,  for  her.  . 
"  These  gentlemen  were  terrified  at  the  notion,  having  the 
greatest  horror  of  anything  relating  to  Popery,  and  did  not 
conceive  it  possible."^ 

Two  months  later  Urquhart  determined  to  make  trial 
for  himself  of  its  possibiUties.  Arriving  at  Preston  in  his 
anti-Chartist  campaign,  it  occurred  to  him  to  turn  aside 
and  visit  Stonyhurst.  In  his  journal  he  gives  the  followinty 
account  of  his  visit : 

1  Private  letter  by  Colonel  Priugle  Taylor. 

179 


180  DAVID  URQUHART 

"  Went  by  the  railway  to  Preston  to  go  to  Stonyhurst. 
Asked  at  Preston  at  the  house  of  one  of  the  Jesuit  priests 
to  get  directions.     Was  taken  to  a  Mr.  Barroll,  who,  on 
learning  my  errand,  very  civilly  afforded  every  information. 
He  did  not  disappoint  me  in  my  ideas  of  a  Jesuit — observant, 
deep  tone  of  voice,  jet  black  hair.     As  I  quitted  him  he 
begged  to  know  my  name,  and  on  giving  my  card  he  im- 
mediately asked  me  if  I  had  any  introduction.     On  my 
reply  that  I  had  not,  he  offered  to  write  a  letter  for  me  to 
take  with  me  for  fear  of  any  mistake  or  any  delay.     I  went 
in  the  meantime  to  the  inn  to  get  some  dinner,  and  Mr. 
Barroll  himself  came  with  his  note  for  Stonyhurst.      We 
entered  into  conversation,  and  my  departure  was  conse- 
quently delayed,  so  as  to  occasion  me  a  very  uncomfortable 
night.     Finding  ]\ir.  Barroll  a  man  of  considerable  informa- 
tion   and   reading,    of    a   philosophical   and   metaphysical 
character,  I  was  induced  to  enter  with  him  on  the  object 
of  my  visit  to  Stonyhurst,  and  the  rather  because  if  I 
should  find  there  men,  not  his  superiors,  but  his  inferiors, 
it  would  have  been  so  much  gained  to  have  gone  over  the 
subject  with  some  one  of  the  Order  and  to  have  left  some 
traces  behind  me  of  the  purpose  of  my  visit.     I  conse- 
quently  shadowed   forth   to   him   the   dejDendence   of   the 
Papal  Power  as  a  temporal  Sovereignty  on  the  Public  Law 
of  Nations,  and  the  obhgation  that  the  Pope  therefore  had 
to  maintain  it  for  his  own  defence,  and  that,  whatever  his 
rehgious  position,  he  must,  as  a  temporal  Sovereign,  have 
at  heart  the  welfare  of  England,  since  through  England 
alone  could  he  hope  to  be  maintained  against  that  terri- 
torial preponderance  which  had  driven  his  predecessor  from 
his    throne;    against    that    general    disorganisation,    which 
proceeded  from  the  diplomatic  combinations  of  the  Cabinet 
of  the  North;  that  Russia  was  a  spiritual,  as  weU  as  a 
pohtical,  conqueror,  that  she  aimed  no  less  at  subverting 
the    temporal    dominion    of    England    than    the    spiritual 
dominion  of  Rome;  that  the  present  Pope  had  appreciated 
the  hostility  of  Russia;^  had  placed  himself  in  a  position 
of  warfare  with  that  dangerous  Power ;  that  he  had  therefore 
to  anticipate  my  conclusions,  but  that  he  must  be  ignorant 
of  the  value  of  the  discovery  he  had  made,  of  the  Alhes 
who  were  ready  to  cluster  round  him,  of  the  elements  he 

*  In  1842,  Gregory  XVI.  put  forth  an  "exposition  corroborated 
by  documents  respecting  the  incessant  care  given  by  Ills  Holiness  to 
remedy  the  Grave  Evils  by  which  the  Catholic  ReUgion  is  afflicted 
in  the  Imperial  and  Royal  States  of  Russia  and  Poland.'' 


HIS  EARLIER  RELATIONS  TO  ROME         181 

might  call  to  his  assistance.  The  Kaliff  of  the  Mussulman, 
the  Pontifex  of  the  Catholics,  and  the  Head  of  the  Pro- 
testant Faith  were  all  at  once  openly  and  avowedly  assailed 
by  one  Power,  which  liad  not  only  succeeded  in  injuring 
all  and  endangering  all,  but  in  preventing  each  from  com- 
muning with  each  other  or  understanding  itself.  The 
question  was  to  put  the  Pope  in  possession  of  that  know- 
ledge and  of  these  means,  and  to  show  him  Turkey,  England, 
Austria,  as  capable  of  being  united  and  directed  by  any 
superior  intelligence  comprehending  these  questions. 

"  Having  thus  unfolded  some  portion  of  my  thoughts  I 
proceeded  towards  the  College,  a  distance  of  fourteen  miles, 
the  roads  exceedingly  bad,  the  fog  preventing  us  seeing  a 
foot  before  us.  I  arrived  too  late  for  being  admitted,  and 
had  to  return  to  a  small  public-house  on  the  road.  The 
aspect  of  the  buildings,  however,  the  character  of  its  iij- 
habitants,  their  connection  with  that  widespread  field, 
embracing  reminiscences  of  China  and  Paraguaj^  my  own 
anticipations  of  ability  in  the  Superior  and  the  great  results 
which  might  come  from  this  visit,  all  conspired  to  raise 
my  expectations.  The  interest  of  my  thoughts  recalled  to 
me  forcibly  the  approaching  in  the  East  to  the  tenements 
or  mansions  of  distinct  sects,  faiths,  and  races,  diversified 
ideas,  habits,  language,  doctrines,  and  metaphysics,  and 
as  I  approached  next  morning  the  towers  of  Stonyhurst 
I  felt  an  anticipation  and  dehght  in  human  intercourse  such 
as  I  had  never  before  felt  except  in  the  East. 

"  I  was  admitted.  A  gentleman  came  to  me  and  told 
me  that  the  Principal  was  at  that  moment  engaged,  and 
that  he  would  in  the  meantime  show  me  round  the  building, 
which  is  indeed  exceedingly  interesting,  both  in  its  present 
application  and  its  past  reminiscences.  I  told  this  Father 
briefly  my  object  in  the  interest  I  had  taken  in  pubhc 
affairs,  adding  that  I  did  so  that  it  might  enable  the  Superior 
to  direct  himself  to  these  subjects  if  he  took  any  interest 
in  them.   .   .  . 

"  The  Superior  appeared,  and  all  idea  of  communicating 
with  him  on  any  subject  of  the  kind  instantly  vanished. 
He  could  not  even  tell  me  the  names  of  the  philosophical 
writers  in  their  own  course  of  study.  I  need  not  pursue 
the  matter  further.  One  of  the  Fathers  I  found  acquainted 
with  the  philosophical  works  and  writers  on  the  Continent. 
He  had  studied  Sanscrit,  and  was  then  studying  Chinese, 
but  he  was  a  man  rather  advanced  in  years,  and  afflicted 
with  paralysis. 


182  DAVID  URQUHART 

"  The  people  in  the  neighbourhood  I  found  strongly 
prepossessed  in  favour  of  Catholicism,  where  they  had  not 
turned  Catholics. 

"  I  see  no  advantage  which  the  Jesuits  have  over  the 
Church  save  the  bad  name  of  their  Order  and  a  certain 
degree  of  mere  suavity  and  politeness. 

"  I  could  not  altogether  resist  the  temptation  of  giving 
vent  to  my  disappointment.  On  one  of  them  referring  to 
their  Order  in  former  times,  I  remarked  that  it  was  im- 
possible for  him  to  comprehend  the  Jesuits  of  that  time: 
'  It  is  not  the  privilege  of  men  to  comprehend  that  which 
is  above  them,  and  you  can  no  more  comprehend  your 
joredecessors  than  Englishmen  at  the  present  day  can  under- 
stand what  Englishmen  were.  I  came  here  thinking  you 
were  Jesuits,  but  find  you  mere  Englishmen.'  " 

His  disappointment  in  the  English  Jesuits,  though  it 
resulted  in  his  abandonment  of  any  hope  of  help  through 
them,  for  that  time,  at  least,  did  not  destroy  Urquhart's 
growing  conviction  that  in  the  Catholic  Church  lay  the 
power,  if  she  chose  to  exert  it,  through  which  poUtical 
salvation  might  come  to  the  world. 

England,  which  stiU  maintained  some  idea  of  Law  and 
Justice,  was  losing  it  in  the  deadly  grip  of  that  most  fatal 
of  all  heresies :  the  beUef  that  rehgion  had  no  concern  with 
politics — a  heresy  which  was  the  root  and  fruit  of  the 
Peace  of  Westphalia,  and  with  which  all  Protestantism  was 
infected.^ 

There  were,  he  pointed  out,  three  religious  systems  in  the 
world,  which  counted  for  good  or  evil,  and  these  three  were 
in  their  nature  religio-political.  In  the  first  of  these,  the 
Greek  Church,  which  acknowledged  as  its  head  and  dictator 
the  Czar  of  Russia,  rehgion  was  made  to  serve  the  uses  of 
politics;  she  had  therefore  become  a  menace  to  the  world. 
In  Islam,  whose  Kaliff  was  the  Sultan  of  Turkey,  rehgion 
controlled  each  act  of  the  daily  life  of  its  members  as  well 
as  the  public  hfe  of  the  State;  its  influence  was  therefore 

1  As  a  matter  of  fact,  Catholicism  was  also  infected — but  only 
in  her  practice,  not  yet  in  her  doctrine.  That  could  never  be  unless 
she  were  to  disown  her  own  traditions.  The  political  salvation  of 
the  world  still  lies  in  Catholics  remembering  them,  and  acting  upon 
them. 


HIS  EARLIER  RELATIONS  TO  ROME         183 

on  the  side  of  Justice.  But  it  was  in  the  Catholic  Church 
that  there  was  to  be  found  the  most  perfect  example  of 
the  balance  of  religious  and  political  power.  The  Pope — 
the  greatest  of  spiritual  rulers — was  also  one  of  the  lowliest 
of  earthly  Kings.  The  King  in  him  could  never  overshadow 
the  Priest;  never  could  he,  with  any  chance  of  success,  call 
his  kingly  power  to  the  aid  of  his  priestly  authority.  Unless 
the  basis  of  his  rule  was  Justice  and  Law,  unless  his  sceptre 
was  over  the  hearts  and  thoughts  of  men,  it  was  weak  as 
a  reed. 

Because  he  was  a  King  the  Pope  could  set  a  standard 
to  the  nations,  because  his  kingly  power  gave  no  pretext 
for  force  and  no  scope  for  ambition,  he  could  set  the  stan- 
dard of  Law  and  Justice.  He  could  do  it  the  better  because 
his  was  no  inherited  royalty. 

"  He  does  not  pass  through  the  emasculating  process  of 
royal  birth  and  pretensions ;  he  is  not  gradually  woven  into 
the  system  either  of  social  habits  or  of  poHtical  expediency 
or  of  diplomatic  subserviency. 

"  The  Pope,  translated  from  the  cloister,  carries,  or  may 
carry,  to  the  Imperial  throne  the  manhood  of  the  peasant 
and  the  sternness  of  the  anchorite."^ 

In  the  hands  of  a  Pope  of  transcendent  moral  character 
and  high  intelligence  the  Papacy  had  been,  and  might  be 
again,  a  power  for  good  in  the  world  against  which  no  evil 
could  stand. 

But,  it  might  be  asked,  in  what  way  could  a  King, 
beset  on  all  hands  by  foes,  with  an  army  so  insignificant 
as  to  be  little  more  than  a  bodyguard,  a  royalty  so  feeble 
as  to  be  the  sport  of  any  great  potentate  who  might  arise, 
whose  sole  power  was  in  the  thoughts  of  men — how  could 
such  an  one  exercise  any  appreciable  power  for  good  or 
evil  ? 

It  was  precisely  because  of  the  immaterial  nature  of  the 
power,  said  Urquhart,  that  it  was  so  potent.  Because  his 
Kingdom  was  not  of  this  world,  because  his  power  lay,  not 
in  arms,  but  in  Justice,  his  arms  must  be  the  arms  of  the 

1  "  The  Three  Religio-Political  Systems  of  Europe,"  Portfolio. 
Second  Series. 


184  DAVID  URQUHART 

mind — in  other  words,  diplomacy.  The  word  "  diplomacy  " 
had  come  to  have  a  sinister  meaning,  but  in  itself  it  was 
innocent  ahke  of  good  or  evil.  It  was  a  weapon  which 
could  be  turned  to  base  or  noble  uses.  It  was  for  the  Pope 
to  take  it  and  with  it  to  fight  for  the  right.  At  present 
Europe  was  suffering  under  the  exercise  of  the  diplomacy 
of  evil.  Russia,,  the  past  mistress  of  diplomacy  in  Europe, 
had  gained  her  ends,  "  in  spite  of  a  weak  and  disjointed 
Government  at  home,  replete  with  every  element  of  dis- 
cord, and  destitute  of  every  one  of  the  elements  of  strength, 
by  which  the  other  Powers  had  attained  to  their  strength." 

They  were  her  superiors  in  every  other  respect,  but  they 
had  been,  over  and  over  again,  as  clay  in  her  hands  because 
of  her  superiority  in  diplomacy.  Every  man  in  her  Cabinet 
was  a  trained  diplomatist,  but  her  diplomacy  was  evil,  and 
its  influence  maleficent.  It  was  a  "  Satanic^  intelligence 
walking  the  upper  world  as  a  pestilence  spreadmg  through 
the  brain  of  man." 

It  had  infected  every  Power  in  Europe ;  Rome  alone  was 
untouched  by  it  because,  by  the  Peace  of  Westphalia,  she 
had  been  banished  from  the  charmed  circle  of  European 
politics,  and  her  banishment  had  been  ratified  and  con- 
firmed by  the  Treaty  of  Vienna.  She  had  accepted  and 
gloried  in  her  exclusion  by  refusing  to  be  a  party  to  that 
Treaty.  The  defi.ance  she  alone  in  Europe  had  hurled  at 
Napoleon,  her  strong  protest  against  the  breach  of  public 
Law  committed  by  Russia  in  the  persecution  of  her  Cathohc 
subjects  ,2  had  put  the  Vatican  definitely  on  the  side  of  Law 
and  Justice.  In  making,  therefore,  Law  and  Justice  the 
basis  of  a  new  and  higher  system  of  diplomacy,  she  would 
not  be  forced,  as  every  other  State  in  Europe  would  be, 
to  disown  her  former  poUcy,  and  to  have  to  retrace  her 
steps.  "  Diplomacy  in  Venice,"  said  Urquhart,  "  was 
worldly  wisdom,  diplomacy  to  Louis  XIV.  was  an  aspect 

1  "  On  the  Kelation  of  the  Eastern  and  Western  Churches,"  Port- 
folio.    New  Series. 

2  The  first  protest  issued  by  Gregory  XVI.  to  the  Czar  against 
the  persecution  of  his  Catholic  subjects,  particularly  the  Poles. 
In  his  protest  the  Pope  took  his  stand  not  on  the  Treaty  of  Vienna, 
but  on  Public  Law  and  Justice. 


HIS  EARLIER  RELATIONS  TO  ROME         185 

of  military  power,  diplomacy  in  Russia  is  the  science  of 
corrupting  and  discomposing  States.^  Diplomacy  in  the 
Court  of  Rome  must  be  the  restoration  and  the  union  of 
the  wisdom  of  the  serpent  with  the  harmlessness  of  the 
dove.  ...  If  after-ages  should  ever  speak  of  the  diplo- 
macy of  Rome,  history  will  have  to  record  the  reunion  in 
this  century  of  religion  and  politics,  and  it  will  have  to 
describe  the  diplomacy  of  a  Church,  not  of  a  State,  which 
has  appeared  upon  earth  counteracting  the  powers 
of  darkness,  as  a  Providence  protecting  the  human 
race." 

But  Urquhart  well  saw  that  the  prehminary  step  to  a 
theocratic  diplomacy  such  as  this  was  the  training  of  the 
diplomatist.  He  had  at  first  cherished  the  idea  that  the 
Jesuits  might  put  some  of  the  elaborately  constructed 
machinery  of  their  educational  system  to  such  a  purpose, 
but  his  visit  to  Stonyhurst  had  been  the  death-blow  of  that 
hope.     He  determined  to  approach  the  Vatican  directly. 

Through  his  friend  Anstey^  he  obtained  an  introduction 
to  Cardinal  Capaccini,  the  Papal  Nuncio  to  Portugal,  who, 
in  1844,  visited  London  on  his  return  to  Rome,  that  he 

1  If  newspapers  can  be  believed,  this  is  still  the  case  in  Bolshevik 
Eussia.     The  following  paragraph  appeared  in  the  Observer,  May  18, 

1919. 

Stockholm, 

Saturday. 

The  Svsnsha  Daghlad's  Helsingfors  correspondent  reports  that 
the  Russian  Soviet  Government  has  sent  its  representatives  abroad 
the  following  instructions  on  how  to  conduct  the  revolutionary- 
movement  in  foreign  countries: 

"  In  order  to  create  international  conflicts,  the  best  method  is  to 
support  national  fanaticism,  effect  interior  dissension,  and  commit 
attempts  against  the  lives  of  foreign  Government  representatives. 
As  regards  internal  policy,  anti-Government  movemeiits  should  be 
started,  strikes  organised,  influential  persons  abused,  and  industrial 
machinery  destroyed,  in  order  to  raise  revolt.  Efforts  should  also 
be  made  to  effect  the  stagnation  of  traffic,  prevent  the  supply  of 
provisions  to  towns,  and  set  false  paper  money  into  circulation. 

"It  is  further  advisable  to  try  to  create  complete  dissension 
within  the  Army  by  means  of  agitation,  murderous  attempts  against 
high  officers,  and  the  blowing  up  of  bridges  and  depots  of  arms. 
Military  espionage  of  every  description  should  be  practised  in  regard 
to  fortifications,  naval  technical  equipment,  and  the  numerical 
strength  and  morale  of  the  Army." — Reuter. 

2  See  Note  to  Chapter  VII.,  p.  143. 


186  DAVID  URQUHART 

might  report  to  the  ecclesiastical  authorities  on  the  condi- 
tion of  CathoHcism  in  England. 

Capaccini's  interview  with  David  Urquhart  had  in  it 
certain  dramatic  elements. 

It  is  a  truism  that  Italian  ecclesiastics  find  it  hard  to 
understand  Englishmen,  even  EngUsh  Catholics.  But  it 
must  have  been  more  than  usually  surprising  to  this  Cardinal 
Nuncio  of  Portugal  to  be  suddenly  confronted  by  an  English- 
man, obviously  not  one  of  the  prominent  Catholics,  whom 
it  might  be  his  duty  to  interview,  who  declined  to  be  re- 
buffed, and  who  opened  the  conversation  by  warning  him 
that  between  England,  heretical  England,  and  Rome  there 
lay  intermingUng  strands  of  policy,  that  they  were  united 
by  a  common  danger,  and  a  common  safety.  But  soon 
Urquhart's  words  woke  in  the  mind  of  the  Italian  an 
answering  chord,  for  Capaccini  was  a  statesman,  and  he 
knew  that  the  things  of  which  his  interlocutor  spoke  were 
true. 

"It  is  a  manifest  and  great  danger,"  he  answered,  as 
Urquhart  spoke  of  the  great  power  of  the  evil  diplomacy 
which  was  the  menace  of  Europe,  particularly  of  Rome 
and  of  England,  each  in  her  own  way  standing  for  Justice. 
"  It  is  a  great  danger,  but  it  is  irresistible." 

"  When  Europe  possesses  in  its  humblest  State  a  Minister 
who  is  honest,  Europe  and  you  will  learn,"  said  Urquhart, 
"  that  the  power  of  Russia  is  not  irresistible,  but  most 
easily  met  and  overcome." 

"  But  surely,"  said  Capaccini,  "  some  of  the  great  Euro- 
pean statesmen  are  equal  to  the  task  ?" 

"  Nothing,"  said  Urquhart,  "  but  honesty  and  knowledge 
are  equal  to  the  task.  Look  what  these  men  are  in  the 
judgment  of  the  Muscovites — what  in  their  hands.  You 
look  upon  yourself  as  an  ItaUan,  upon  me  as  an  Enghsh- 
man.  To  the  Muscovite  we  are  one  and  the  other,  only 
'  Schwabes,'  the  mute,  the  brute,  and  they  are  right. 
Europe  stands  in  respect  of  these  barbarous  races  of  the 
North  as  the  Roman  Empire  in  the  sixth  century  did  in 
respect  to  our  forefathers,  but  with  the  difference  that  our 
forefathers  had  not  the  art,  and  had  not  the  corruption  of 
the  civilisation  of  the  times,  while  the  modern  barbarians 
unite  the  withering  corruption  and  the  destroying  art 
and   science  of  the   most   advanced   civilisation  with  the 


HIS  EARLIER  RELATIONS  TO  ROME         187 

destructive    energies    and    the    all-grasping    cupidity    of 
barbarians." 

"What,  then,  are  we  to  do  ?"  asked  Capaccini,  leaning 
forward  intently,  with  both  hands  on  the  arms  of  his  chair. 

So  was  Urquhart  brought  to  the  point  for  which  he  had 
sought  this  interview. 

"  That  question,"  he  repUed,  "  and  the  manner  in  which 
you  ask  it,  brings  back  to  my  mind  the  very  same  words 
addressed  to  me  by  my  Sovereign, ^  and  I  will  repeat  to 
you  the  answer  which  I  was  inspired  to  give  him.  I  did 
not  say  to  him,  'Adopt  this  measure;  take  that  course;  do 
this  thing  or  that;'  but  I  replied,  'Form  men.'  I  said, 
'  Send  a  few  young  men  prepared  with  the  requisite  study 
of  International  Right  and  Public  Law  to  a  practical 
examination  of  things  and  men.  .  .  .  You  suffer,  not  from 
want  of  strength,  but  from  the  danger  of  mistaking  your 
way.'  This  I  now  say  to  you,  with  the  difference  in  the 
application  making  its  adoption  the  more  easy.  You  have 
not  the  idea  of  armies  and  fleets.  You  have  no  veil  from 
danger,  or  pretext  for  indifference.  You  are  directly 
assailed." 

Urquhart  had  three  interviews  with  Capaccini  when  he 
was  in  England,  and  they  parted  with  many  expressions  of 
confidence  and  regard  on  the  Cardinal's  part.^ 

1  William  IV. 

2  Mr.  Anstey  had  a  private  interview  witli  Cardinal  Capaccini, 
during  the  course  of  which  he  asked  if  there  was  any  point  on  which 
the  Cardinal  would  wish  for  further  information. 

Cardinal  Capaccini :  "  Only  one  thing  I  would  like  you  to  ascer- 
tain from  him  {i.e.,  Urquhart),  whether  he  is  satisfied  with  me,  for 
I  am  quite  satisfied  with  him." 

3Ir.  Anstey :  "  Mr.  Urquhart  is  not  one  of  us." 
Cardinal  Capaccini  :  "  He  is  a  good  Catholic  against  Russia." 
31r.  Ansfey:  "  I  believed  that  I  stood  alone  amongst  the  CathoUcs, 
and  until  I  knew  Mr.  Urquhart  and  his  friends,  I  thought  I  stood 
alone  amongst  the  inhabitants  of  Britain  in  the  sense  that  I  have 
ever  entertained  of  judging  of  public  events  by  the  same  rule  that 
I  might  apply  to  my  own  private  conduct.  I  considered  myself  as 
living  alone  in  this  island  with  these  feelings,  until  I  met  that  man. 
The  difference  between  him  and  me  depends  upon  the  difference 
rather  of  the  roads  by  which  we  have  come  to  our  present  conclu- 
sions: I,  through  seeking  what  ought  to  be  my  duty  as  a  Catholic  ; 
he,  as  an  Englishman.  He  has  those  who  fuUy  feel  and  act  with  him 
who  are  not  Englishmen — some  French,  some  English,  some  Mussul- 
mans :  and  naturally  so,  for  it  is  the  question  of  that  which  is  the  basis 


188  DAVID  URQUHART 

He  undertook  to  set  afoot  a  scheme  for  a  Diplomatic 
College  in  Rome,  and  to  prepare  Urquhart's  way  with  the 
Holy  Father.  He  fulfilled  his  engagements  and  seems  to 
have  conveyed  to  the  Court  of  the  Vatican  his  own  feelings 
of  confidence  in  the  wisdom  of  Urquhart's  policy,  with  the 
result  that  the  English  Protestant  was  invited  to  Rome  to 
confer  with  the  Holy  Father.  He  was  on  his  way  thither 
when  Gregory  XVI.  died.  He  turned  back;  once  again  his 
plans  were  frustrated. 

On  the  need  for  men  engaged  in  the  Diplomatic  Service 
to  be  trained  in  Public  Law  and  in  the  practical  conduct 
of  affairs,  Urquhart  never  ceased  to  insist,  from  the  time 
when  he  had  urged  it  on  William  IV.  to  the  end  of  his  life. 
He  reiterated  the  need  of  it  to  Pius  IX.,  in  an  Italy  torn 
by  convulsions  and  revolution;  even  when  the  Temporal 
Power  had  been  entirely  lost,  he  never  ceased  to  press  it 
on  him  as  the  first  step  to  the  re -establishment  of  Public 
Law  and  Justice  in  Europe. 

Urquhart's  method  is  still  waiting  to  be  tried.  Mean- 
while, Diplomacy  has  not  grown  more  honest,  standing 
armies  have  not  decreased,  nor  have  wars  ceased.  The 
dream  of  a  reign  of  Justice,  that  was  to  banish  the  reign 
of  Force,  which  buoyed  us  up  during  the  war,  retreats 
farther  and  farther  into  the  distance. 

There  is  still  no  forming  of  men  for  Diplomacy.  Inter- 
national lawyers  we  have.  They  are  present  at  Peace 
Conferences,  presumably  to  clear  up  the  obscure  language, 
which,  by  no  accident,  finds  its  way  into  treaties.  But 
they  are  unrepresented  at  embassies,  they  are  not  con- 
sulted as  to  whether  private  arrangements  between  nations 
are  in  accord  with  Public  Law;  no  mention  is  ever  made 
of  their  being  consulted  even  before  a  Declaration  of 
War. 

Moreover,  it  is  a  moot  question  whether  the  real  founda- 


of  all  national  existence,  as  of  all  religious  obligation,  against  that 
which  is  the  perversion  of  the  one  and  the  other.  And  all  those  who 
have  come  to  this  conclusion,  Turks,  Protestants,  English,  French, 
look  to  the  Pope  as  the  only  European  Potentate  from  which  can  pro- 
ceed the  authoritative  enunciation  of  these  doctrines,  or  the  practical 
resistance  to  the  evils  which  follow  from  their  neglect." 


HIS  EARLIER  RELATIONS  TO  ROME         189 

tions  of  Public  Law  and  morality  are  taken  into  account, 
even  among  modern  so-called  international  lawyers,  or 
whether  their  concern  is  not  wholly  with  the  interpretation 
of  treaties.  In  Urquhart's  eyes  treaties  were  but  side 
issues ;  the  main  question  of  diplomacy  was  concerned  with 
Public  Justice  based  on  Public  Law,  It  was  because  the 
whole  fate  of  Europe  seemed  to  him  to  turn  on  the  decision 
as  to  whether  Public  Law  or  lawlessness  was  to  prevail, 
that  he  thought  it  the  most  important  of  the  duties  which 
devolved  upon  a  Prince  of  the  Church,  or  even  upon  the 
Head  of  Christendom  himself,  to  strive  to  guide  that  deci- 
sion right. 

In  1846  Urquhart  was  still  hopeful  that  something  might 
be  done  in  Rome.  Italv,  with  its  new.  ideas  of  national 
life,  was  for  a  moment  at  the  feet  of  Pius  IX,,  who  had 
"  breathed  a  new  spirit  into  the  Romans,"  Urquhart 's 
friend,  the  Abbe  Hamilton,  wrote  from  Rome  of  the 
appointment  of  the  new  Papal  Nuncio  for  Portugal/  who 
had  promised  to  visit  England  on  his  way  home  if  possible. 
The  idea  of  a  Diplomatic  College  in  Rome  had  been  put 
before  him,  and  he  had  received  it  favourably. 

Hamilton  writes : 

"  Cardinal  Ghizzi  has  promised  to  give  very  careful  con- 
sideration to  any  hints  you  may  give  him  as  to  the  means  of 
increasing  the  efficiency  of  the  Corps  Diplomatique  in 
Rome,  He  is  not  the  only  person  here  who  is  aware  of 
the  Avant  of  education  under  which  our  statesmen  suffer. 
A  Congregation  of  Cardinals  is  considering  the  reformation 
of  the  Institute  of  Education,  and  may  probably  make 
some  change  which  may  render  it  efficient  as  a  nursery  of 
diplomatic  talent," 

Urquhart  was  very  hopeful;  there  was  a  great  muster  of 
his  friends  in  Rome  just  then.  "  Mr.  Ross,  of  Bladens- 
burg,"  he  writes,  "has  succeeded  in  gaining  Lord  Chfford, 
who  has  sent  me  a  message  that  he  is  glad  to  find  himself 
embarked  in  the  same  boat;  we  have  had  very  wild  en- 
counters lately.     A  new  ally,  Sir  W,  Stuart,  started  for 

^  Capacciai  died  suddenly,  soou  after  his  return  to  Rome, 


190  DAVID  URQUHART 

Rome  a  few  days  ago,  also  Dr.  Gillies,  Roman  Catholic 
Bishop  of  Edinburgh.  Dr.  Gillies  is  a  man  considerably 
above  the  ordinary  level,  and  has,  I  find,  preserved  the 
recollection  and  impression  of  a  conversation  I  had  with 
him  nine  years  ago.  Dr.  UUathorne,  Roman  Catholic 
Bishop  of  the  Western  District,  whom  I  never  saw,  but 
who  has  been  studying  the  old  Portfolio  and  preaching  from 
it,  has  gone  to  Rome. 

"  General  Manley,  now  an  old  associate,  is  also  in  London 
on  his  way  to  Rome,  so  that  there  will  be  a  singular  con- 
centration of  EngUsh  opinion  at  Rome  in  our  sense." 

Mr.  Urquhart  sent  the  Cardinal  Secretary  of  State  a 
long  and  very  elaborate  account  of  the  possibiUties  for  the 
world  in  a  new  diplomacy  at  the  Vatican. 

"  I  hope,"  says  Mr.  Hamilton,  "  that  some  effect  has 
been  made.  The  Cardinal  has,  I  believe,  determined  on 
the  erection  of  a  Diplomatic  School  in  Rome,  and  he  has 
taken  the  first  step  to  it  in  the  suppression  of  something, 
which  was  by  way  of  supplying  the  candidates  for  the  various 
Offices  of  State.  It  is  his  intention  to  reform  the  Ecclesi- 
astical Academies  in  two  years,  and  I  hope  that  before 
that  time  you  will  have  an  opportunity  of  explaining  to  the 
Secretary  of  State  in  Rome  your  views  on  this  important 
subject  viva  voce." 

Pio  Nono's  reforming  spirit  was  evident  in  every  depart- 
ment of  the  Papal  Government.  The  air  around  him  was 
full  of  ideaUsm,  and  his  own  ardent  soul  rose  up  to  meet  it, 
overleaping  the  bounds  set  by  the  steriUsing  inertia  of  the 
officials  of  the  old  regime.  Italy  was  at  one  with  her 
Spiritual  Head  as  she  had  not  been  for  centuries. 

But  it  was  upon  this  very  romance  and  generosity  of 
spirit  that  the  foes  of  the  Papal  Power  were  calculating. 
They  were  scattering  broadcast  insinuations,  hints  and 
innuendoes,  trying  to  stir  up  jealousy  and  strife  aUke 
amongst  his  friends  and  his  foes. 

Ross  writes  from  Rome : 

"  I  cannot  subscribe  to  the  judgment  you  pass  on  the 
late  Pope,^  nor  is  the  statement  of  d'Azegho  correct,  that 

*  I.e.  that  he  was  against  reform  of  any  kind  in  the  administration 
of  the  Papal  States. 


HIS  EARLIER  RELATIONS  TO  ROME         191 

Austria  called  on  him  to  make  the  reforms  now  contem- 
plated by  the  present  Pope.  The  reverse,  I  am  informed, 
is  the  fact.  Cardinal  Cappelari  had  expectations  of  being 
raised  to  the  Pontificate  after  the  death  of  Leo  XII.  Con- 
sequently he  had  digested  his  plans,  and  amongst  his  papers 
since  his  death  have  been  found  arrangements  for  reforms 
more  extensive  and  searching  than  appear,  as  far  as  we 
can  judge,  to  be  anticipated  at  present.  The  popular 
outbursts  following  the  French  Occupation  of  1830  gave 
an  ascendancy  to  Austria,  which  she  used  to  prevent  these 
reforms  from  taking  place,  and  Gregory,  after  having  n 
vain  wrestled  against  Austrian  influence  in  his  Cabinet, 
was  obliged  to  succumb  and  let  things  go  their  way.  .  .  . 
I  am  puzzled  as  to  the  influence  that  raised  Pius  IX.  to  the 
Pontificate.  At  any  rate,  I  cannot  think  that  his  elevation 
was  displeasing  to  the  brigand  Powei's,  for  the  simple  reason 
that,  as  he  was  a  man  that  never  expected  to  be  so  raised, 
he  had  not  any  plans  matured.  The  Amnesty  was  the 
result  of  his  having  perceived  the  failure  of  the  system 
pursued  while  Bishop  of  Imola.  ...  I  fear  that  his 
popularity  will  impede  his  freedom  in  more  senses  than  one. 
The  situation  he  is  thereby  placed  in,  in  regard  to  Austria, 
is  stated  to  me  as  a  reason  for  not  doing  what  the  present 
crisis  demands.  The  over-sanguineness  will  lead  to  its  dis- 
appointing itself." 

Ross's  fears  were  justified.  The  great  ideas  afloat  in  Italy 
had  not  wings  strong  enough  to  bear  very  far  or  very  high. 
Pius  IX.  woke  from  his  dream  of  a  free  and  federated  Italy 
to  find  it  darkened  by  the  fear  of  bloodshed,  to  find  that 
there  was  no  cohesion  or  unity  except  in  fiery  speeches. 
Among  the  Italian  States  only  Venice  showed  herself  capable 
of  reahsing  on  what  had  depended  her  ancient  freedom, 
her  ancient  glory.  Italy  was  defenceless  in  the  face  of 
revolution  and  counter-revolution.  The  idea  of  a  United 
Kingdom  under  the  House  of  Savoy  could  never  be  realised 
with  Charles  Albert  as  leader.  Those  who,  hke  Gioberti 
and  Rosmini,  dreamed  of  a  Confederate  Italy  under  the 
Pope,  saw  their  vision  killed  by  foes  in  the  household  of 
the  Church.  Divided  in  herself,  and  a  prey  to  revolution- 
aries of  all  nationahties,  Italy  was  no  match  for  Austria- 
even  an  Austria  distracted  by  troubles  at  home. 


192  DAVID  URQUHART 

But  the  fatal  blow  to  the  great  ideal  was  struck  when 
Pius  IX.,  who  had  already  drawn  back  from  a  contest  with 
Austria,  called  in  the  aid  of  France  against  an  anarchy  he 
could  not  stem.  Many  who  had  hailed  him  as  the  dehverer 
of  Italy,  and  acclaimed  him  as  the  leader  under  whose 
banner  she  was  again  to  be  united  and  free,  became  his 
bitterest  foes,  and  the  day  of  the  final  loss  of  his  sovereignty 
in  Italy  grew  perceptibly  nearer. 

Pius  IX.,  however,  in  drawing  back  from  leading  a  general 
revolt  of  Italy  against  Austria,  had  taken  his  stand  upon 
the  Law  of  Nations.  It  was  the  only  firm  ground,  when  the 
earth  was  rocking  with  corruption,  and  the  air  was  thick 
with  lying  rumours.  No  plot  was  too  dishonest,  no 
treachery  too  foul  wherewith  to  bolster  up  a  patriotic 
scheme,  or  to  undermine  the  position  of  a  foe.  Looking 
back  upon  it  now,  it  seems  as  though  the  Pope,  were  he  to 
remain  master  of  his  own  soul,  must  have  stood  clear  of 
the  whole  struggle.  Rome  was  the  storm-centre  of  Italy 
and  of  Europe.  Only  Venice  succeeded  in  riding  the 
whirlwind,  in  obtaining  and  even  keeping  for  a  time  her 
independence  with  honesty  and  good  faith. 

Urquhart  has  been  accused  of  being  opposed  to  Italian 
Unity.  It  is  therefore  interesting  to  be  able  to  quote  some 
part  of  a  letter  of  congratulation  which  he  wrote  in  1848 
to  the  noble  President  of  the  new  Venetian  RepubUc, 
Daniele  Manin,  on  the  little  State's  great  achievement: 

"  At  a  moment  when  your  country's  fate  depends  upon 
the  dii-ection  which  the  Provisional  Government  shall  give 
to  the  first  movements  of  the  State,  you  may  not  be  in- 
disposed to  listen  to  the  suggestions  of  one  who  has  labori- 
ously explored  in  its  various  fields  the  traces  of  Venetian 
enterprise.  ...  In  the  past  greatness  and  weakness  of 
Venice  I  distinguish  two  remarkable  features — causes  of  the 
one,  and  evidences  of  the  other.  The  first  regards  com- 
merce, the  second  diplomacy  !  In  both  she  presents  the 
very  contrast  to  the  present  European  system.  The  great- 
ness which  she  achieved,  the  ruin  with  which  they  are  now 
overwhelmed,  would  justify  a  stranger  people  in  eschewing 
their  practice  and  adopting  their  maxims.  How  much  more 
you,  who  are  Venice,  and  have  cast  of!  Austria  ! 


HIS  EARLIER  RELATIONS  TO  ROME        193 

"  Venice  taxed  no  foreign  produce  or  manufactures.  In 
modern  Europe  science  consists  in  that  method  of  raising 
a  revenue.  .   .  . 

"  Venice  made  Diplomacy  the  very  foundation  of  her 
State,  and  therefore,  small  as  she  was,  she  obtained  ascend- 
ancy over  mighty  potentates. 

"  In  Modern  Europe  Diplomacy  is  in  truth  unknown, 
yet  the  whispers  of  diplomatists  are  all-powerful.  Secret 
conclaves  rule  the  world,  and  the  nations  neither  know 
why  or  how. 

"  If  Venice  be  indeed  again  a  Republic,  let  that  Republic 
be  Venice." 


Ij 


CHAPTER  X 

"  UNITED  ITALY  " 

"  0  Pater,  0  Hominum  divumque  seterna  potestas — 

Namque  aliud  quid  sit,  quod  jam  implorare  queamus  ? — 
Cernis  ut  iusultent  Rutuli." 

^neid.  Book  X.,  18-20. 

Whatever  sympathy  Urquhart  felt  with  the  natural  aspira- 
tions of  the  Italian  States  for  freedom  from  the  bondage 
of  Austria,  however  he  may  have  been  disposed  to  admire 
the  spirit  of  union  against  a  common  foe,  and  the  willing- 
ness of  Piedmont  to  merge  her  own  personality  in  that  of 
an  Italian  kingdom,  his  admiration,  even  had  it  been  able 
to  survive  the  many  breaches,  open  and  covert,  of  the  Law 
of  Nations  by  which  the  War  of  Liberation  was  brought 
to  a  successful  issue,  must  have  been  turned  to  contempt 
by  the  mingled  treachery  and  effrontery  of  the  attack  on 
the  Kingdom  of  Naples  by  the  ill-assorted  Triumvirate, 
Cavour,  Mazzini,  and  Garibaldi;  a  contempt  which  grew 
white   hot  with   indignation  and   scorn   during  those  ten 
years  after  the  entry  of  Victor  Emmanuel  and  Garibaldi 
side  by  side  into  Naples,  when  the  Italian  Government, 
Catholic  in  name,  was  doing  its  utmost  to  starve  and  kill 
the  Catholic  Church  in  its  own  dominions,  by  robbing  her 
of  her  possessions,  and  subjecting  her  to  every  kind  of 
petty  persecution,  while  it  sat  and  watched  with  hungry 
eyes  for  the  time  to  come  when  it  could  cast  to  the  wind  its 
promises,  tear  up  the  Convention  it  had  signed  with  the 
intention  of  destroying  it,  and  seize  upon  and  secularise 
the  States  of  the  Church. 

We  may  not  agree  with  him  in  regarding  the  setting  up 
of  an  Italian  Kingdom  as  the  triumph  of  Russian  diplo- 
macy in  the  South  of  Europe,  as  the  seizure  of  the  Duchies 
had  been  in  the  North.     But   it  was  a  view  entirely  con- 

194 


"UNITED  ITALY"  195 

sistent  with  the  idea  he  had  formed  while  he  was  in  the 
East,  of  Russia's  determination  to  create  for  herself  a  strong 
sphere  of  influence  in  the  Mediterranean.  For  five-and- 
twenty  years  before  the  outbreak  of  the  war  he  had  been 
constantly  concerned  to  connect  Russia  with  the  outbreak 
of  European  Revolution,  particularly  in  the  South,  and 
more  especially  in  France  and  Italy. 

"  To  me,"  he  said,  "  the  key  of  her  operations  has  been 
the  direct  object  of  Russia,  which  can  be  traced  back  to 
1793,  of  obtaining  Sicily,  positions  on  the  coast  of  the 
Adriatic,  and  the  Greek  Islands." 

Her  great  stumbling-block  was,  he  declared,  as  it  had 
been  Napoleon's,  the  Papacy;  and  he  prophesied  that  she 
would  not  leave  a  stone  unturned  until  she  had  crushed  the 
sovereign  power  of  the  Pope. 

Few  figures  in  history  have  stood  out  with  so  much 
dignity  and  grandeur  as  Pius  IX.  during  the  ten  years 
which  preceded  the  final  loss  of  the  Imperium  Civile. 
Neither  the  wounds  of  his  friends,  the  blows  of  his  enemies, 
nor  the  insults  of  the  indifferent  could  break  down  the  silent 
majesty  in  which  he  wrapped  himself.  Betrayed  and 
despised,  he  was  still  the  most  heroic  figure  in  Europe,  and 
that  Urquhart  recognised  him  as  such,  when  the  world 
around  had  been  taken  captive  by  much  shouting  and  a 
Httle  glamour,  is  no  mean  testimony  to  his  own  greatness. 

But  if  he  admired  the  Pope,  whom  it  was  the  fashion  to 
execrate,  he  hated  what  most  men  loved. 

The  English  passion  for  vagueness  had,  from  the  begin- 
ning of  Mazzini's  career,  been  taken  captive  by  his  verbose 
phrases  about  God  and  rehgion.^  In  the  man  who,  in  the 
eyes  of  the  godly  men  of  his  own  country,  was  doing  the 
work  of  the  Devil,  persecuting  priests,  hunting  down  re- 
Hgion,  turning  places  consecrated  by  centuries  of  prayer  to 

^  Words  were  Mazzini's  great  weapon.  In  an  address  to  the 
"  Friends  of  Italy,"  given  in  Paris  in  October,  1844,  he  says: 

"  There  are  regenerative  words  which  contain  aU  that  need  be 
often  repeated  to  the  people.  Liberty,  Rights  of  Men,  Progress, 
Equality,  Fraternity,  are  what  the  people  will  understand;  above 
all  when  opposed  to  the  words  Despotism,  Privileges,  Tyranny, 
Slavery,  etc  !" 


196  DAVID  URQUHART 

secular  uses,  Englishmen  of  all  classes  saw  a  saintly  ascetic, 
who  had  given  up  home,  country,  friends,  for  the  sake  of 
Freedom. 

The  sentimentalist  was  enthralled  by  the  spectacle  of  the 
great  exiled  patriot  holding  classes  for  the  rehgious  and 
moral  instruction  of  the  Itahan  organ-grinders  in  London. 
To  him  there  was  great  profundity  in  the  long  harangues 
in  which  "God"  and  -'the  People,"  "Religion"  and 
"  Liberty,"  were  placed  in  appeahng  juxtaposition. 

But  when  Urquhart  read  them,  he  said:  "This  means 
but  one  thing,  Disorder,  Revolution,  utter  want  of  a  moral 
sense  concealed  behind  vague  rehgious  sentiment." 

In  1863  he  wrote  to  a  friend,  who  had  been  greatly 
attracted  by  the  renewed  glamour  of  Mazzini's  exploits  as 
Garibaldi's  adjutor  in  Sicily: 

"  As  to  what  I  mvself  dii'ectly  know  in  reference  to 
Mazzini,  the  whole  is  to  be  found  worked  out  in  the  species 
of  judicial  examination  of  myself  which  took  place  at 
Bhmingham  in  1855,  on  which  occasion  were  produced  the 
letters  and  statements  of  Kossuth  and  Mazzini  in  attempted 
justification  of  themselves;  and  on  the  perusal  of  which 
the  Committee  was  dissolved,  the  Chairman,  jMr.  George 
Dawson,  of  Birmingham,  observing:  'After  that,  I  have 
nothing  more  to  say.' 

"  But  I  have  no  objection  to  relate  from  memory  what 
occurred  on  the  one  occasion  when  I  met  Mazzini  to  his 
face.  It  was  in  the  year  1842  or  1843.  Mr.  Anstey  had 
been  talking  to  me  of  him,  and  as  he  expressed  himself  to 
me  in  terms  which  I  have  scarcely  ever  heard  used  of  a 
human  being,  I  was  alarmed  in  reference  to  ^Ir.  Anstey 's 
judgment  and  passions;  and  more  with  that  in  view  than 
anything  else,  I  made  up  my  mind  to  see  him  myself,  if  I 
could  possibly  do  so  without  his  knowing  me. 

"  I  applied  to  Mr.  Szulcheski.  Secretary  to  the  Pohsh 
Association,  mentioning  the  occasion  and  my  purpose.  He 
procured  for  me  ]\Ir.  Mazzini's  address.  I  went  thither. 
It  was,  I  think,  a  street  running  parallel  to  Portland  Place. 
Inquiring  for  him,  a  message  was  brought  down  from  him 
asking  my  name.  I  repHed  that  I  was  a  stranger  to  him, 
and  yet  desired  to  see  him;  but  yet,  if  he  had  any  objec- 
tions, it  in  no  way  mattered.  The  maid-servant  returned 
with  an  invitation  to  walk  upstairs. 


"UNITED  ITALY"  197 


"  I  said  on  entering:  '  I  have  no  excuse  for  this  intrusion 
save  this,  that  I  am  an  Englishman,  and  desii-e  to  hear  you 
talk  about  Italy.'  His  look  of  inquisitive  distrust  was 
immediately  exchanged  for  extreme  einpressement.  He 
placed  for  me  a  chair,  and  seating  himself  opposite  to  me 
across  a  small  round  ta,ble,  invited  me  to  question  him.  I 
commenced  with  the  year  181G,  and,  once  launched,  he 
apphed  himself  to  expound  events  historically,  I  having 
no  other  idea  at  the  time  than  that  of  endeavouring  to 
fathom  the  character  of  the  man. 

"  When  coming  to  the  affair  of  Modena  in  the  year  1827, 
a  conversation  I  had  had  with  Davidovitch  and  Petroni- 
evitch  at  Cravovitz  suddenly  flashed  across  me,  and  I  said, 
interrupting  him :  '  So  it  was  then  that  you  (meaning  the 
Revolutionists)  sent  your  Deputation  to  the  Emperor  of 
Russia  at  Vosnogenk  ?' 

"  He  threw  himself  back  as  if  he  had  received  a  blow, 
and  after  a  time  faltered  out  '  Yes,'  and  remained  silent. 

"That  silence  I  broke  by  these  words:  'How  do  you 
reconcile  yourselves  to  receive  Russian  money  V 

"  By  this  time  he  had  recovered  himself.  He  smihngly 
answered:  'There  is  no  love  lost  between  us.  We  loiow 
her,  and  do  not  trust  her;  but  we  are  on  the  same  line.'  I 
asked  what  that  line  was. 

"  He  rephed,  '  Disorder  !' 

"Rising,  I  said:  'I  have  now  to  thank  you.  I  have 
obtained  all  I  desired,'  and  left  him,  rooted  in  amaze- 
ment.  ... 

"  I  may  say  that  subsequent  to  the  investigation  of  this 
matter  at  Birmingham,  something  of  a  similar  nature  took 
place  at  Newcastle,  when  a  Pole  named  Stanislas  Worcell 
testified  to  his  having  heard  ^lazzini  mentioning  a  meeting 
having  taken  place  between  him  and  me. 

"  You  may  Uke  to  know  what  it  is  I  had  heard  from 
Davidovitch  and  Petronievitch  in  Servia.     It  was  this : 

"  They  had  received  the  orders  of  the  Prince  (jlilosch) 
to  make  me  a  confession  of  the  whole  intercourse  that  had 
taken  place  between  Servia  and  Russia,  all  which  has  been 
fully  detailed  by  me  in  a  report  to  Government  at  the  time,^ 
but  of  which  I  do  not  find  a  copy  amongst  my  papers, 
although  there  is  repeated  reference  to  it  in  the  correspon- 
dence ^^dth  Sir  Herbert  Taylor.^     It  is,  therefore,  to  my 

1  Foreign  Office  Tapers.     Turkey  249. 
'■*  Piivate  Secretary  to  William  IV. 


198  DAVID  URQUHART 

memory  alone  that  I  must  now  trust  after  an  interval  of 
thirty  years. 

"  They  told  me  that  in  the  year  1827  one  or  both  of  them 
had  been  amongst  the  deputies  sent  by  Servia  to  meet  the 
Emperor  at  a  review  at  Vosnogenk ;  that  after  their  audience 
in  the  Emperor's  tent  he  had  turned  round  and  caused 
some  gentlemen  in  dark  clothes  to  advance;  and  then, 
turning  to  the  Servian  deputies,  uttered  these  words: 
'  These  gentlemen  are  the  representatives  of  the  first  peoples 
in  Europe,  to  whom  the  rest  owe  whatever  Ught  they 
possess ;  and  here  they  are  come  to  seek  Liberty  and  Inde- 
pendence from  those  whom  the  people  of  Europe  call 
barbarians.' 

"  To  the  best  of  my  recollection  the  word  Italy  was  not 
so  much  as  mentioned,  nor  am  I  aware  that  at  the  time 
I  had  any  idea  of  the  connection  between  Italy  and  Russia. 
My  present  impression  is  that  that  connection  only  struck 
me  in  the  course  of  Mazzini's  narrative." 

His  attitude  towards  the  other  representatives  of  Italian 
Unity  was  even  more  contemptuous.  In  1867  he  sent  to 
one  of  the  leading  newspapers  a  letter,  the  title  of  which, 
"  Garibaldians  and  Fenians,"  sufficiently  indicates  the 
purport. 

The  paper  returned  it  with  the  remark:  "  Very  excellent, 
but  wholly  inadmissible  into  any  English  paper  printed  to 
be  sold.  The  key-note  would  cause  the  very  stones  of  the 
town  to  fly  about  the  heads  of  the  proprietors." 

The  press,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  would  now  have  nothing 
to  do  with  Urquhart;  no  newspaper  would  publish  his 
letters,  or  the  letters  of  his  friends  on  the  state  of  affans 
in  Italy — so  opposed  were  they  to  the  mass  of  public  opinion 
which  the  Government  was  carefully  fostering.^ 

1  The  following  letter,  taken  from  the  Free  Press,  November  2, 
1S64:,  is  one  of  many  that  Urquhart  received  from  friends  in  Italy 
during  this  time.  It  shows,  as  they  all  do,  the  immense  discrepancy 
between  fact  and  fancy  in  the  jiopular  ideas  on  the  Papal  Govern- 
m3ut,  and  the  feeling  of  his  subjects  for  the  Pope: 

The  Pope  and  his  Subjects. 

To  the  Editor  of  the  "  Free  Press:'' 

Sir, — An  observation  which  occurred  in  a  recent  number  of  a 
daily  newspaper  intimated  that  the  demonstrations  of  loyalty  and 
affection  manifested  towards  Pius  IX.,  on  his  return  to  Rome  from  a 


"  UNITED  ITALY  "  199 

"  There  is  indeed  a  History  besides,"  wrote  Mrs.  Urquharfc 
to  a  friend  on  the  subject  of  the  Garibaldian  enUstments, 
"  a  History  which  would  take  volumes  in  this  particular 
case:  I  mean  Garibaldi  and  Italy:  how,  through  long  years, 
the  minds  of  Englishmen  have  been  prepared  for  the  events 
of  the  last  by  a  systematic  supply  of  false  news  and  sup- 
pression of  the  truth  as  regards  the  country,  in  the  year 
1860  to  be  acted  upon;  how  the  most  influential  members 
of  the  Press  (secretly  working  with  my  husband  as  many 
do)  have  declared  it  impossible  to  get  in  a  hne  in  a  con- 
trary sense,  that  is  a  single  line  that  was  not  abusive, 
except  in  some  obscure  provincial  papers." 

Anyone  who  either  remembers  or  who  has  read  of  the 
white-hot  fever  of  excitement  into  which  all  classes  of 
Enghsh  society  worked  themselves  over  Garibaldi — how  his 
very  dress  was  imitated,  his  tokens  and  colours  worn  by 
fine  ladies,  how  Cabinet  Ministers  threw  propriety  to  the 
winds  in  their  praises  of  exploits  which,  if  they  had  been 

summer  excursion,  did  not  originate  in  the  sentiment  of  the  people 
but  were  prompted  and  organised  by  the  authorities.  If  you  do 
me  the  honour  to  accept  my  testimony,  as  an  eye-witness  of  many 
demonstrations  in  that  city,  and  especially  during  six  months  lately 
spent  there,  I  shall  indicate  a  different  conclusion. 

I  might  allude  to  various  occasions  on  which  I  was  witness  of 
popular  manifestations  of  feeling  towards  the  Pope  on  his  visits 
to  churches  or  institutions,  when  there  was  no  circumstance  to 
attract  as  a  pageant,  nor,  beyond  the  presence  of  the  Pontiff,  to  render 
them  interesting.  Crowds  poured  into  the  streets  on  his  way,  and 
filled  the  large  piazzas  of  the  SS.  Apostoli  or  the  Gesu.  I  par- 
ticularly noticed  that  aU  classes  were  represented,  and  all  equally 
demonstrative. 

One  of  the  greatest  and  most  picturesque  demonstrations  was 
made  on  the  annual  visit  of  the  Pope  in  state  and  procession,  on 
the  2.5th  of  last  March,  to  the  Dominican  Church  in  the  Piazza 
della  Minerva,  where,  according  to  an  ancient  custom,  he  bestows 
marriage  portions  on  a  number  of  young  women. 

From  the  Papal  residence  to  the  Piazza,  the  streets  were  hung 
with  flags  and  devices,  houses  were  decorated,  and  green  leaves 
and  flowers  were  strewn  on  the  procession,  and  loyalty  and  devotion 
were  evinced  by  the  people  in  every  form  of  Italian  grace  and  fervour. 
But  it  happened  on  this  occasion  that,  through  certain  streets  in- 
habited by  the  working  classes,  there  was  more  than  ordinary  excite- 
ment. For  the  agents  of  the  anti-papal  party,  who  aU  the  winter 
had,  to  our  great  edification  at  their  veracity,  proclaimed  through 
their  organs  in  the  Press  of  North  and  South  Italy — which  were 
echoed  by  our  own — "  the  dangerous  illness  and  approaching  death 
of  the  Pope,"  now  circulated  a  report  that  he  was  actually  dead, 
but  that  the  fact  was  carefully  withheld.     They  afBrmed  that  in  the 


200  DAVID  URQUHART 

performed  in  Ireland  instead  of  Italy,  would  have  been 
visited  with  all  the  vengeance  of  the  outraged  majesty  of 
the  Enghsh  law;  how  young  men,  peers  and  workmen  alike, 
rushed  to  enhst  in  his  army — will  understand  that  Urqu- 
hart's  attitude  must  have  robbed  him  of  every  vestige  of 
the  influence  he  still  possessed  in  England — except,  indeed, 
amongst  the  neghgible  minority,  who  still  counted  Law 
and  Justice  dearer  than  Romance  and  Sentiment  and 
grandiloquent  phrases. 

The  days  when  The  Times,  the  Morning  Advertiser,  the 
Herald,  in  fact,  most  of  the  leading  papers,  had  been  glad 
to  publish  a  series  of  letters  from  Urquhart's  pen  had  long 
passed.  One  after  another  they  had  thrown  him  over,  as 
he  attacked  idol  after  idol  dear  to  the  Enghsh  heart.  Now, 
however,  not  only  did  he  heap  scorn  and  contempt  on 
popular  idols,  but  he  set  up  in  their  place  one  whom,  almost 
by  instinct.  Englishmen  distrusted,  and  for  whose  downfall 


procession,  which  would  equally  take  place,  the  Pontiff  would  be 
personated  by  a  Cardinal,  or  other  individual,  got  up  in  character. 
Wlien,  therefore,  the  people  saw  their  real  Sovereign  in  his  own  person 
they  became  wildly  excited.  Long  before  the  Cross-bearer  at  the 
head  of  the  procession  arrived  on  the  Piazza,  we  distinguished  the 
shout,  "  Viva  11  Papa  Re."  The  scene  was  strikingly  impressive 
and  beautiful — full  of  life,  movement,  and  colour:  tapestry  hanging 
from  tlie  houses,  devices  of  varied  design,  groups  with  flowers  at  every 
window.  At  last  there  was  startling  transition  from  comparative 
tranquillity  to  enthusiastic  animation.  The  Pope  appeared,  and 
like  the  fiill  burst  of  an  organ  all  the  stops  of  popular  feeling  were 
drawn  out  in  the  loud,  joyous  roar  of  the  great  Roman  crowd  beneath. 
There  was  animated  and  sparkling  movement  over  the  dense  excited 
mass,  fluttering  of  handkerchiefs,  waving  of  flags,  showering  of 
flowers,  and  the  long,  continuous  shout  Avhich  rose  to  the  dignity 
of  a  prayer,  "  Viva  il  Papa  Re." 

Later'in  the  spring  the  Pope  made  his  annual  visit  to  the  ancient 
Church  and  Convent  of  St.  Agnes,  two  miles  beyond  the  gates  of 
Rome.  The  road  was  thronged  with  carriages,  and  the  footway 
with  pcoi)le,  and  in  the  crowds  assembled  there  was  a  repetition 
of  the  enthusiasm  of  the  last-mentioned  occasion.  At  night  there 
was  an  illumination  of  the  Avhole  city,  and  its  universality  proved  it 
the  result  of  popular  impulse,  and  showed  unmistakably  how 
general  were  the  sentiments  of  attachment  to  the  Pope.  My  long 
acquaintance  with  Rome  and  with  the  people  enables  me  to  appre- 
ciate the  value  and  sincerity  of  these  demonstrations.  I  shall  only 
add  that  the  observations  made  to  me  by  many  of  our  countrymen 
and  visitors  to  Rome,  men  of  every  variety  of  creed  and  opinion, 
were  in  perfect  accordance  with  my  own. 


"  UNITED  ITALY  "  201 

they  were  eagerly  looking.  To  them  Garibaldi  and  Mazzini 
stood  for  Italian  Independence  and  the  freedom  of  man- 
kind; the  Pope  stood  for  slavery  and  tyranny  and  the 
Dark  Ages. 

Because  Urquhart  execrated  the  methods^  of  the  Italian 
Revolution,  because  he  insisted  on  bare  justice  for  the 
Pope,  he  was,  in  the  eyes  of  the  mass  of  Englishmen,  out 
for  Popery,  and  a  foe  to  liberty  and  independence. 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  Urquhart  was  never  opposed  to 
Italian  Independence  yer  se  ;  this  is  evident  in  his  letter 
to  Daniele  Manin  in  1 848.  It  was  Revolution  manufactured 
from  without  that  he  opposed — -it  was  injustice  and  law- 
lessness masking  themselves  under  the  name  "  National 
Union." 

"  It  is  not  Italy  liberated  and  united  against  the  foreigner, 
it  is  a  foreign-bred  faction  usurping  the  government  of 
Italy  by  destroying  the  separate  States  and  relying  for 
support  upon  foreign  intrigue.  If  Italy  had  been  threatened, 
as  a  portion  of  it  was  occupied,  by  foreigners ;  if  Italians 
had  only  panted  for  independence,  not  lusted  for  partici- 
pation in  tlie  crimes  of  Europe,  nor  listened  to  the  phrases 
coined  by  knaves  to  pass  current  amongst  fools,  Italy 
might  have  arrived  at  a  union  under  one  Sovereign,  but 
would  have  retained  its  local  life  and  independence.  But 
with    a   Central   Parliament,    where    all   manners,    rights, 

^  Such  as  tlie  following  description  of  tlie  working  of  tlie  Plebiscite 
in  Savoy  from  Jepp's  Diplomatic  Revelations  of  a  Secret  Agent  of 
Count  Cavour.     London,  1862. 

"  We  had  the  registers  brought  to  us  that  we  might  prepare  the 
list  of  electors;  we  made  out  all  the  bulletins.  For  these  first  local 
elections,  as  afterwards  for  the  annexation  vote,  only  few  electors 
presented  themselves  to  take  any  part;  but  at  the  moment  of  closing 
up  the  urns  we  threw  in  the  bulletins  naturally  for  Piedmont — not, 
of  course,  quite  all:  we  left  out  some  hundreds,  or  some  thousands, 
according  to  the  population  represented  by  the  College." 

"  Before  the  vote  was  opened,  agents  of  the  police  and  disguised 
carbineers  choked  up  all  the  entrances  to  the  hall,  and  it  was  from 
these  impartial  persons  that  the  President  of  the  Bureau  and  the 
scrutineers  were  always  chosen.  We  were,  therefore,  not  crippled 
in  that  regard.  In  some  Colleges,  however,  this  wholesale  intro- 
duction into  the  urn  of  the  bulletins  of  the  absent,  which  we  called 
'  completing  the  vote,'  was  done  with  so  little  care  tha,t,  upon  the 
proclamation  of  the  result,  it  was  found  that  there  had  been  more 
vote;>  than  electors  inscribed." 


202  DAVID  URQUHART 

opinions,  laws,  shall  be  settled  for  all  by  the  calculation 
of  the  votes  of  some,  a  condition  of  prostration  is  estab- 
lished for  all  in  the  face  of  the  Executive,  out  of  which 
must  come  two  apparently  different  results — revolt  against 
the  head,  and  apathy  between  the  parts." 

It  was  so-called  "Legislative  Union,"  not  "Italian 
Unity  "  that  Urquhart  resisted— Legislative  Union,  that  is, 
as  opposed  to  municipal  government.  In  no  part  of  the 
world,  said  he,  save  in  Greece  and  Switzerland,  had 
municipal  organisation  been  more  prominent  than  in  the 
Italian  Peninsula.  Now,  however,  "  for  the  control  of  the 
municipalities  is  to  be  substituted  the  consent  of  the  Par- 
liament to  everything  performed  by  the  Cabinet  of  Turin 
and  designed  by  that  of  St.  Petersburg." 

For  in  St.  Petersburg  Urquhart  had  always  seen  the  great 
foe  to  municipal  government ;  everywhere,  he  said,  her  one 
aim  had  been  its  suppression. 

In  the  Papacy  he  had,  on  the  other  hand,  always  seen 
the  great  bar  to  Russian  diplomacy.  He  had  said  to 
Cardinal  Capaccini  in  1844:  "Rome  can  be  saved  from 
Russia  only  if  there  is  an  honest  Minister  in  Sardinia." 
He  had  seen  in  the  entry  of  Sardinia  into  the  Crimean  War 
the  first  direct  move  on  the  part  of  Russia  against  the 
Papacy.  He  had  protested  against  the  interference  with 
Italian  affairs  by  the  Congress  of  Paris.  And  now,  that  by 
his  words  spoken  so  long  ago,  he  had  again  proved  himself 
a  true  prophet,  he  declared  his  high  hopes  for  the  future 
of  Italy  in  one  sentence  spoken  to  a  Sardinian  statesman: 
"The  Pope  is  the  only  real  thing  in  Italy.  You,  as  a 
CathoHc  and  an  Italian,  do  not  see  this.  If  you  are  to 
have  an  Italian  Unity,  it  can  only  be  done  by  making  the 
Pope  King  of  Italy." 

This  was  Gioberti's  dream,  the  vision  of  a  Confederate 
Italy  under  the  Pope,  finding  expression  through  an  English- 
man and  a  Protestant.  To  him  Rome,  the  capital  of  Italy, 
was  as  much  the  degradation  of  a  great  idea  as  Cavour's 
famous  "  Free  Church  in  a  Free  State."  "  Rome  was  never 
the  capital  of  Italy,"  he  said;  "when  Italy  was  governed 
from  Rome,  Rome  governed  the  world." 


"  UNITED  ITALY  "  203 

And  though  Urquhart  was  never  a  Catholic,  this  was  his 
dream — impossible  of  fulfilment  as  it  proved — for  the  future 
of  Italy.  1 

^  It  was  not  in  Italy  alone  that  Urquhart  fought  "  Legislative 
Union." 

In  1847,  he  wrote  a  long  letter  to  his  ardent  friend  and  supporter, 
Sir  George  Sinclair,  on  the  subject  of  the  Repeal  of  the  Union  between 
England  and  Ireland. 

The  letter  is  too  long  to  quote  in  full;  it  is  to  be  found  in  the 
Diplomatic  Beview  of  December  5,  1866.  Anyone  who  is  sufficiently 
interested  to  read  it  will  find  little  in  it  which  might  not  have  been 
written  to-day. 

In  the  course  of  the  letter  Urquhart  says : 

"  Now  let  us  drop  the  case  of  right.  Let  us  assume  it.  Is  it  ex- 
pedient to  stand  upon  it  and  deny  the  wishes  of  Ireland  ? 

"Immediately  arise  a  host  of  questions.  Have  results  at  home 
proved  your  faculty  to  legislate  well  I  Has  success  in  Ireland 
crowned  your  past  experiments  ?  Have  you  obtained  material  bene- 
fits from  her,  equivalent  to  her  resources  f  Have  you  acquired  her 
goodwill  and  affection  as  the  fruits  of  your  justice,  wisdom,  and 
moderation  ?  Do  you  acquit  yourself  in  the  management  of  her 
affairs  with  self-satisfaction  and  ease  ?  If  the  answers  are  in  the 
affirmative,  the  question  of  the  expediency  of  entertaining  Ireland's 
request  is  opened,  not  closed;  but  if,  on  all  or  any,  the  answer  is  in 
the  negative,  then  I  think  the  question  of  expediency  settles  into 
its  admission. 

"  You  have  oppressed  Ireland,  and  you  have  alienated  her.  The 
one  is  not  your  interest  nor  the  other  your  purpose.  She  has, 
therefore,  been  the  occasion  to  you  of  a  great  delusion.  The  aliena- 
tion is  the  result  of  oppression.  The  oppression  has  been  for  gain's 
sake,  not  gain  of  the  English  nation,  but  of  some  of  its  servants: 
you  have  been  deluded  to  screen  their  acts. 

"  In  former  times  the  Court  was  the  acting  hand.  Now  it  is  the 
Parhament.  The  delusion  has  thus  extended  from  the  misrepre- 
sentation of  particular  incidents  to  the  falsification  of  general  prin- 
ciples. How  dangeroTis,  then,  is  Ireland  to  England  !  Well  might 
we  wish  that  the  Atlantic  rolled  between. 

"  But  it  may  be  asked,  '  How  can  we  get  rid  of  her  ?  We  cannot 
sink  her  nor  transport  her.  There  she  is.  We  have  extinguished 
her  means  of  government;  we  must  go  on  governing  her;  embarras- 
sing as  she  is,  she  might  become  more  so  if  we  relinquished  our  hold.' 
He  would  be  a  bold  man  to  say  that  she  could  have  managed  herself 
worse  than  we  have  managed  her.  Had  she  done  so,  still  would  it 
not  have  been  our  act;  then  would  her  eyes,  and  hope,  and  heart, 
have  been  turned  towards  England  for  refuge,  remedy,  and  redress. 
Left  to  herself,  she  must  either  have  been  better  or  as  bad.  If  better, 
we  would  have  derived  the  benefit;  if  as  bad,  she  would  not,  at  least, 
have  domineered  over  us.  .  .  .  Satisfied  that  the  nationality  of 
Ireland  could  not  be  destroyed,  and,  under  the  purifying  process  of 
oppression,  would  revive,  I  have  long  looked  to  her,  as,  I  may  almost 
say,  the  only  hope  I  had  for  England.  Suffering  at  England's  hands, 
I  expected  she  would,  in  time,  repudiate  her  modern  doctrines.  I 
waited  to  visit  her  until  that  hope  should  be  confirmed.     For  the 


204  DAVID  URQUHART 

first  time  I  met  fellow-countrymen  whom  I  was  not  asliamed  to  avow 
as  such;  for  the  first  time  I  found  fellow-labourers.  They  could 
be  made  to  see  that  freedom  did  not  reside  in  Parliamentary  omni- 
potence, and  that  the  ria;lits  of  freedom  did  not  consist  in  the  electoral 
franchise.  I  can  compare  the  effect  upon  me,  oidy  to  escaping  out 
of  a  damp  mist  into  the  open  air  to  breathe  and  see.  In  regard  to 
England,  they  did  labour  under  misconceptions  which  nurtured 
intense  hate.  I  had,  therefore,  to  require  from  them  justice  to 
England.  The  proposition  might  excite  surprise,  but  nothing  could 
be  more  satisfactory  tlian  the  discovery  of  their  mistake;  for  it  was 
nothing  less  than  the  discovery  that  England  was  not  against  them, 
but  only  the  House  of  Commons,  and  that  House  only  when  doing 
things  for  which  it  was  not  sent,  and  to  do  which  it  had  no  power. 
They  thus  saw  that  it  was  to  England  tliat  they  had  to  look  and  trust 
for  help,  against  a  system  which  betrayed  the  one  country  to  oppress 
the  other.  Then  could  they  justly  say,  '  Our  independence  concerns 
the  maintenance  of  the  British  Empire  and  the  peace  of  Europe.'  " 


CHAPTER  XI 

URQUHART  IN  SAVOY 

"  That's  the  appropriate  country;  there  men's  thought, 
Rarer,  intenser. 
Self -gathered  for  an  outbreak,  as  it  ought, 
Chafes  in  the  Censer." 

Urquhart's  connection  with  the  various  political  move- 
ments of  his  time  lies  outside  the  scope  of  the  present  work. 
In  them  all,  from  the  Crimean  War  and  the  Indian  Mutiny 
to  the  Italian  War  of  Liberation,  his  point  of  view  was 
emphatically  not  that  of  the  majority  of  his  contemporaries. 
As  regards  the  last,  it  was  more  Catholic  than  that  of  many 
Catholics. 

This  was  not  wholly  due  to  Urquhart's  reverence  for  the 
great  past  of  the  Papacy,  though  he  was  intensely  conscious 
of  the  part  it  had  played  in  European  history,  nor  to  the 
influence  of  his  Catholic  friends ;  it  was  the  result  of  a  con- 
viction, which,  it  seemed  to  him,  had  always  been  the 
working  principle  of  Catholic  statecraft,  that  the  only 
possible  basis  of  political  action  was  religion  and  morality — 
a  conviction  which  appears  very  clearly  in  his  association 
with  those  foreign  Catholics  amongst  whom,  in  the  latter 
years  of  his  life,  were  to  be  found  his  closest  associates  and 
friends. 

He  left  England  in  1864,  suffering  from  a  complete  break- 
down in  health,  and  for  the  rest  of  his  life  made  his  summer 
homa  in  a  chalet  which  he  had  designed  and  built  for  him- 
self high  up  on  the  mountains  of  Savoy,  above  St.  Gervais. 

The  Chalet  des  Melezes  became  a  Mecca  to  those  for 
whom  Urquhart  was  a  prophet.  English  statesmen,  French 
bishops,  Turkish  functionaries  high  in  the  Ottoman  Govern- 
ment, visited  him  there,  not  to  tell,  but  to  learn,  what  had 
happened  in  Europe.     There  he  rested  his  tired  brain  by 

205 


206  DAVID  URQUHART 

making  his  garden,  though  it  was  at  an  altitude  where  he 
had  been  warned  that  nothing  would  grow,  the  admiration 
of  all  who  survived  the  two  hours'  precipitous  ascent  from 
the  village  of  St.  Gervais.i  He  was  delighted  when  the 
warnings  proved  wrong.  No  one  had  ever  seen  such  roses 
as  made  the  chalet,  during  the  short  summer  months,  a 
dream  of  colour;  while  the  large  and  luscious  strawberries 
were  not  only  his  pride,  but  the  wonder  of  all  the  peasants 
of  the  mountain-side.  His  garden  was,  as  indeed  were  all 
material  things,  a  symbol  to  him, 

"  I  regret  that  you  did  not  come  yesterday,"  he  writes, 
"  for  I  should  have  presented  you  with  a  rose  as  an  answer 
to  the  letter  which  you  did  me  the  honour  to  write  to  me. 
It  was  the  most  beautiful  rose  I  had  ever  seen.  When,  at 
this  elevation  of  two  thousand  metres,  I  put  spade  into 
the  ground,  everyone  ridiculed  me.  Well,  I  have  not  only 
had  crops,  Wt  the  crops  have  surpassed  those  of  the  plains. 
My  potatoes  have  satisfied  the  hunger  of  my  neighbours 
below,  when  theirs  have  been  a  failure.  The  rose  I  speak 
of  would  have  said,  '  A  thing  is  not  true  because  people 
believe  it,  nor  impossible  because  they  say  it  is.'  I  should 
have  added,  by  way  of  commentary,  '  That  which  a  modern 
European  believes  is  probably  false,  and  that  which  he 
calls  impossible  is  a  thing  to  be  attemj)ted  and  accom- 
plished by  an  upright  heart.'  " 

Though  Urquhart  was  in  an  extraordinary  degree  beyond 
the  influence  of  other  minds,  his  residence  in  Savoy  is 
marked  by  the  exhibition  of  a  phase  of  his  character  un- 
known to  most  of  his  intimates.  He  found  himself  for  the 
first  time  in  his  life  in  the  society  of  men  who  had  arrived 
at  his  own  moral  standpoint,  though  by  different  paths; 
for  the  first  time  he  felt  himself  in  the  presence  of  those 

1  The  children  brought  up  in  the  chalet,  and  as  much  at  home 
on  the  mountains  as  young  goats,  used  to  watch  with  wicked  glee 
the  toil-worn  and  perspiring  appearance  of  portly  bishops  and  high- 
heeled  French  ladies  as  they  emerged  from  the  pine-woods  below  the 
chalet,  on  a  visit  to  tlieir  father. 

There  is  a  story  told  in  the  family  that,  after  such  a  visit,  a  friend, 
encountering  an  ecclesiastic  in  the  village  of  St.  Gervais,  exclaimed 
with  uplilted  hands:  "Mais,  Monsieur  I'Abbe,  quel  air  soufErant ! 
Vous  eces,  done,  bien  malade  V  "  Non,"  replied  the  other  with  a 
meek  air  of  resignation.    "  J'ai  visite  M.  Urquhart." 


w 

N 


c/2 

tl-l 
Q 

H 
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u 

h 


URQUHART  IN  SAVOY  207 

who  had  something  to  teach  him,  before  whom  he  had  best 
keep  silence.  "It  is  curious  that  I  have  conversed  with 
three  priests,"  he  says  in  a  letter  to  a  friend  shortly  after 
his  arrival,  "  since  I  left  England,  to  whom  I  had  nothing 
to  say,  and  from  whom  I  had  everything  to  learn." 

He  had  known  and  reverenced  the  great  past  of  the 
Catholic  Church,  but  he  had  thought  of  it  as  past;  when 
he  came  to  live  amongst  Catholics,  he  was  brought  for  the 
first  time  since  his  boyhood  into  contact  with  her  pulsating 
inner  life,  her  vital  thought,  now  in  a  social  reformer  of 
world-wide  fame  like  M.  Le  Play,  now  in  the  great  Oratorian, 
Pere  Gratry,  now  in  the  Bishops  of  Orleans  and  Geneva, 
now  in  a  simple  village  priest  of  the  Argonne.  With  all 
these  he  found  himself  in  a  deep  and  tranquil  agreement, 
to  which  his  stormy  life  had  been  a  stranger,  on  those  things 
which  were  to  him  the  basis  of  all  ReHgion,  Justice  and 
Law.^ 

"  Je  viens  de  parcourir,"  he  wrote  to  Baron  d'Yvoire, 
"  Les  Sources  du  Pere  Gratry.  J'y  trouve  precisement 
ce  que  je  voulais  dire." 

It  was  his  friendship  with  such  men  as  these  which  gave 
a  new  direction  to  Urquhart's  efforts  after  the  re-establish- 
ment of  the  principles  of  International  Law.  He  had 
always  maintained  that  at  the  root  of  national  peace  and 
prosperity  was  the  Law  of  Nations.  He  had  set  his  Foreign 
Affairs  Committees  to  study  Vattel,  and  he  pointed  out 
without  ceasing  the  steady  decline  of  the  idea  of  International 
Justice  since  the  last  great  writer  on  the  Law  of  Nations 
had  published  his  Droit  des  Gens  in  1758. 

The  admiring  interest  with  which  he  had  studied  mediaeval 
institutions,  as  well  as  his  intercourse  with  his  eccentric 
and  gifted  friend,  Thomas  Anstey,  had  taught  him  to  look 
beyond  Grotius  to  the  source  whence  Grotius  derived  his 
knowledge.     That  source  he  rightly  discerned  to  be  the 

^  "  Je  suis  frapp6,"  writes  M.  Le  Play,  "plus  que  jamais,  de  la 
complete  conformite  de  vucs  qui  regne  entre  M.  Urquhart  et  moi 
toucliant  le  principe  des  rapports  inteniationaux.  Comme  lui, 
je  suis  convaincu  que  I'Europe  est  perdue  si  eu  cette  matiere  on 
ne  reste  pas  puremeut  et  simplement  dans  les  prescriptions  du  Chris- 
tianisme." 


208  DAVID  URQUHART 

Catholic  Church.  But  during  the  earlier  part  of  his  life 
his  mind  was  evidently  somewhat  vague  as  to  how  the 
Church  had  expressed  herself  on  points  of  international 
morality.  He  probably  thought,  and  in  a  measure  rightly 
thought,  that  each  case  on  its  merits  formed  part  of  the 
moral  teaching  given  by  the  living  voice  of  the  Church  in 
each  age.  It  was  not  until  he  got  into  touch  with  the 
larger  Catholic  world,  that  he  realised  the  existence  of  the 
Canon  Law,  its  connection  with  the  Roman  Law,  the  object 
of  his  greatest  admiration,  and  its  place  in  the  economy  of 
the  Church. 

Side  by  side  with  this  discovery  of  the  existence  of  the 
Canon  Law  he  made  another  discovery,  which  the  great 
mass  of  Catholics  themselves  have  not  yet  made,  that  the 
Church  has  forgotten  her  great  heritage.  Even  out  of  her 
catechisms  has  slipped  the  clear,  definite,  unmistakable 
teaching  of  the  Law  between  nations.  "  Let  her  once  more 
set  it  forth,"  he  said,  "  and  the  Church  will  save,  not  only 
the  Papal  States,  but  the  whole  of  Europe,  which  is 
perishing  under  a  reign  of  lawlessness." 

In  the  attack  on  the  Temporal  Power  of  the  Pope  the 
prevailing  lawlessness  had,  he  believed,  culminated. 

On  the  rare  occasions  in  modern  history  when  the  Popes 
had  interfered  in  European  statecraft,  Urquhart  saw  them 
guiding  their  conduct  by  a  Law  as  much  beyond  the  moral 
vision  of  the  modern  diplomatist  as  was  the  Mussulman 
code  beyond  the  comprehension  of  Christian  teachers  who 
could  applaud  the  Chinese  War.  Small  wonder,  then,  that 
he  desired  that  not  only  Canonists,  but  every  human  being, 
Catholic  and  Protestant  alike,  should  be  made  acquainted 
with  that  Law  whose  very  existence  was  forgotten  by  the 
mass  of  men. 

It  was  very  natural  that  they  should  be  oblivious  of  it. 
Written  in  a  learned  language,  it  was  the  law  of  no  Court 
which  counted  any  longer  in  the  world ;  it  was  enforced  by 
no  recognised  authority.  When  men  thought  of  the  Canon 
Law,  they  thought  of  a  set  of  rules  framed  by  priests  and 
Popes  for  the  guidance  of  ecclesiastical  bodies  and  religious 
people,  not  of  laws  founded  on  the  Code  of  Justinian — 


URQUHART  IN  SAVOY  209 

many  of  them  of  universal  application.  To  Englishmen  it 
was  reminiscent  of  nothing  but  ecclesiastical  tyranny  and  the 
Dark  Ages,  before  "  the  glorious  light  of  the  Reformation  " 
had  dawned  upon  the  lands. 

To  Urquhart  the  discovery  of  the  Canon  Law  was  so 
great  a  discovery  that  the  rest  of  his  life  is  a  history  of 
attempts  to  bring  it  to  the  knowledge  of  men,  and  to  procure 
its  restatement,  so  sure  was  he  that  in  it  was  contained 
exactly  that  moral  force  which  would  regenerate  the  world. 

The  Canon  Law,  even  had  it  done  nothing  else,  emphasised 
the  application  to  nations  and  communities  of  those  same 
laws  which  men  recognised  in  their  relation  to  one  another. 
"  Therefore,"  said  Urquhart,  "  the  Canon  Law  must  be 
restored." 

But  how  ?  His  little  company  of  friends  had  various 
schemes  to  propose.  Two  French  priests  proposed  the 
foundation  of  a  Society — the  CEuvre  Apostolique — which 
should  have  branches  in  all  countries,  and  whose  object 
should  be  to  promote  the  knowledge  of  the  Law  amongst 
CathoUcs.  A  French  barrister,  M.  Juvigny,  wrote  a  book 
on  the  restoration  of  the  Canon  Law,  which  was  to  be 
pubUshed  in  England.  Various  towns  like  Rheims, 
Grenoble  and  Arras,  famous  for  the  study  of  Law,  took 
up  Urquhart  and  his  ideas  enthusiastically.  The  Bishop 
of  Geneva's  secretary  suggested  that  modern  catechisms, 
out  of  which  had  dropped  any  teaching  on  Law  between 
nations,  should  be  revised  and  the  teaching  of  the  older 
catechisms  restored.  Those  who  were  still  carrying  on  in 
England  the  Foreign  Affairs  Committees  met  with  an 
enthusiastic  response  to  their  attempts  to  set  forth  amongst 
the  working  men  the  ancient  Canon  Law. 

A  very  clear  indication  of  the  intellectual  development 
reached  by  the  members  of  the  Committees  is  afforded  by 
their  quick  response  to  ideas  so  entirely  new  to  them. 

Obviously,  however,  the  mass  of  men  would  be  untouched 
by  these  methods.  The  CEuvre  Apostolique  would  appeal 
to  the  devout;  works  of  Jurisprudence  to  lawyers;  the 
EngUsh  Working  Men's  Associations  could  only  move  slowly, 
learning  as  they  went. 

U 


210  DAVID  URQUHART 

What  the  world  needed  was  a  voice  which  could  reach 
to  her  utmost  bounds. 

In  1866  the  Pope  declared  to  the  Bishops,  assembled 
in  Rome  to  keep  the  centenary  of  St.  Peter,  his  intention 
of  holding  an  (Ecumenical  Council.  "  The  Council  is  neces- 
sary," he  said,  "  to  put  in  order  the  affairs  of  the  world, 
which  is  crumbling  into  dust,  because  it  has  forgotten  the 
Divine  Law  which  is  the  foundation  of  human  society," 

This  was  the  voice  for  which  the  world  was  waiting  ! 

Pius  IX.  was  now  an  old  man.  It  was  twenty  years 
since  the  unrest  of  Italy,  culminating  in  the  revolt  of 
Rome,  had  driven  him  to  exile  at  Gaeta.  During  those 
years,  though  Rome  was  for  the  present  under  the  insecure 
protection  of  France,  he  had  watched  all  the  mingled  farrago 
of  enthusiasm,  ambition,  idealism  and  corruption  work 
itself  out  into  the  concrete  reality  of  the  new  Kingdom  of 
Italy.  He  had  seen  the  old  standards,  the  old  sanctions,  the 
old  reverences  falhng  one  by  one;  he  stood  now  the  leader 
of  a  small  forlorn  hope,  facing  an  army  that  was  daily  being 
strengthened  by  deserters  from  his  own  ranks,  who  declared 
that  old  things,  amongst  which  was  Rehgion,  had  passed 
away  for  ever,  all  things  had  become  new;  that  in  the  great 
days  that  were  coming  they  would  have  Liberty  for  Autho- 
rity, the  Rights  of  Man  in  exchange  for  the  Moral  Law. 

The  days  were  gone,  they  said,  when  the  sons  of  the 
Kings  who  had  oppressed  the  Church  should  come  kneeling 
before  her  ;  when  Kings  and  Queens  should  serve  her.  It 
was  now  for  the  Church  to  serve  the  State,  the  greatest 
thing  in  the  world,  beyond  all  law  and  all  authority. 

Pius  IX. 's  answer  was  to  publish  the  Syllabus  and  to  call 
a  General  Council. 

No  General  Council  had  been  hekl  since  the  Council  of 
Trent,  and  the  powers  of  the  world  did  not  know  whether 
to  be  alarmed  that  the  Church,  which  they  had  thought 
was  dying,  had  come  to  life  again,  as  she  had  so  often  done 
in  days  of  old,  or  to  be  angered  that  the  Head  of  the  Church 
presumed  to  summon  to  his  side  their  subjects  over  whom 
they,  but  just  now,  had  been  busy  asserting  their  supreme 
rights. 


URQUHART  IN  SAVOY  211 

Their  alarm  and  anger  were  not  allayed  when  it  was 
known  that  the  Council  proposed  to  declare  the  Dogma  of 
the  Papal  Infallibility,  and  the  feeling  which  had  been 
aroused  by  the  Syllabus  with  its  so-called  reactionary  tone 
and  its  strong  denunciation  of  well-established  public 
opinion  was  increased  sevenfold.  France  was  excited;  the 
French  Assembly  discussed  whether  the  State  should  not 
interfere  to  prevent  the  bishops  obeying  the  summons. 
Diplomatists  buzzed  like  flies  about  the  Pope,  who  preserved 
a  complete  calm. 

France,  said  her  Ambassador,  would  withdraw  her 
troops. 

"  Elle  pent  les  retirer,"  said  the  Pope. 

M.  Beust  was  opposed  to  any  reference  to  civil  government. 

"  M.  Beust  passera,  les  Canons  resteront,"  said  the  Pope. 

But  to  David  Urquhart  it  seemed  as  though  the  sun  was 
rising  once  more  over  the  world. 

Now  there  was  hope  that  they  might  return — those  great 
days  when  there  was  public  Law  in  Europe;  the  days 
when  the  Chair  of  Peter  was  the  Seat  of  Law;  when  in  every 
land  Doctors  of  the  Church  lifted  up  their  voices  to  pro- 
claim that  Law;  when,  "  to  the  castles  of  the  Great,  to  the 
homes  of  the  Lowly,"  went  from  university  and  monastery, 
bishops  and  priests  armed  with  an  authority  teaching  one 
Law ;  when  Rome  had  a  definite  policy  which  all  men  knew, 
a  policy  which,  in  spite  of  lapses,  made  for  right;  when 
gentle  and  simple  alike  thronged  the  universities,  which 
were  the  schools  of  Law;  when,  though  men  and  nations 
might  disobey  and  set  at  defiance  the  Law,  they,  at  least, 
had  not  lost  this  mark  of  humanity — that  they  knew  it. 
Those  were  the  days  when  the  Popes,  the  Grand  Justiciars 
of  Europe,  were  not  afraid  to  defend  the  weak  against  the 
strong;  when  it  was  the  proudest  boast  of  the  greatest 
amongst  them:  "I  have  loved  justice  and  hated  iniquity; 
therefore  I  die  in  exile." 

All  this  Urquhart  saw  when  he  looked  back  over  the 
]VIiddle  Ages,  and  though  he  looked  with  the  eyes  of  one 
who  loved  them,  it  was  not  the  less  a  true  picture  which 
he  saw. 


212  DAVID  URQUHART 

The  Middle  Ages  were  the  Ages  of  Law,  and  it  was  the 
Reign  of  Law  that  he  longed  to  bring  back,  in  which  he 
saw  the  only  hope  for  the  world. 

The  conviction  came  upon  him  now,  in  all  its  complete- 
ness, that  only  through  the  Church  could  that  reign  return. 
"  The  Church  of  Rome,"  he  said,  "  was  in  spirit,  as  she  is 
now  in  form,  judicial."  Her  very  faults  were  those  of  a 
judicial  body;  the  rigidity  of  which  men  complained,  her 
close  adherence  to  form,  her  insistence  on  legal  precedence. 
These  things,  in  all  his  relations  with  her,  never  estranged 
Urquhart.  His  own  judicial  mind  understood  the  necessity 
for  them. 

The  Syllabus,  in  the  eyes  of  nearly  the  whole  of  Europe 
reactionary  and  ridiculous,  when  it  was  not  dangerous, 
expressed  what  LTrquhart  had  been  saying  all  his  life. 

He,  too,  believed  that  the  true  motives  of  action,  justice 
and  human  right  had  been  lost,  and  that  material  force 
had  taken  their  place.  He,  too,  had  been  all  his  life  pointing 
out,  at  last  with  the  scorn  of  hopelessness,  the  certain  ruin 
which  would  follow  if  public  opinion  were  taken  as  the  guide 
of  life,  instead  of  Divine  and  human  right. 

"  A  Society  set  free  from  the  laws  of  religion  and  true 
justice,"  said  the  Pope,  "  can  have  no  other  object  than 
the  accumulation  of  wealth,  and  no  other  law  in  all  its 
acts  than  the  eager  desire  to  satisfy  the  passions  and  to 
procure  enjoyment." 

Urquhart  had  been  preaching  for  more  than  twenty 
years  that  all  social  evils  had  come  from  the  overthrow 
of  Law. 

The  intense  significance  of  the  Syllabus  lay,  for  him, 
rather  in  what  it  was  not  than  in  what  it  was.  It  was  a 
document  of  "  no  political  importance,  save  the  use  which 
would  be  made  of  it  "  to  destroy  the  Papal  power  in  Italy; 
of  no  originality,  for  it  said  what  had  been  said  better 
many  times  before.  In  fact,  it  was  of  no  mark  at  all  save 
that  it  showed  that  the  world  would  have  been  without  an 
anchor  but  for  one  man,  who  understood  the  trend  of 
events,  and  who  could  expose  the  idle  forms  of  speech 
which  concealed   the  most  dangerous  errors   of  the  day. 


URQUHART  IN  SAVOY  213 

It  was  this  exposure  rather  than  the  denunciations  it  con- 
tained which  Urquhart  held  to  be  vahiable.  Had  he  not 
preached  for  years  that  all  language  was  falsified,  and  that 
therefore  there  was  no  vehicle  in  popular  language  for 
wholesome  and  pure  ideas,  but  only  for  vague  and  erroneous 
opinions. 

Thus  Rome  became  at  once  his  great  hope  for  the  future. 
He  saw  the  vision  of  what  might  be  the  result  of  strong  and 
effective  action,  such  as  that  of  some  of  the  mediaeval 
Popes,  in  a  world  which  he,  almost  alone  of  his  contem- 
poraries, knew  to  be  in  a  desperate  condition;  we  ourselves 
know  now  how  desperate.  For  one  who  sees  with  the  eyes 
of  the  mind  sees,  as  it  were,  with  telescopic  sight.  What  is 
far  off  is  brought  near,  and  to  him  details  stand  out  which 
to  the  ordinary  onlooker  do  not  exist. 

To  his  contemporaries,  to  the  greater  part  of  those  who 
read  Urquhart' s  letters  to  the  press,  while  indeed  the  press 
continued  to  publish  his  letters,  or  heard  the  speeches  of  his 
later  years,  he  seemed  exaggerated  to  the  point  of  eccen- 
tricity, not  to  say  madness. 

Of  his  constantly  reiterated  warning,  this  was,  in  effect, 
the  substance : — • 

For  all  the  apparent  security  in  which  men  had  wrapped 
themselves,  the  civilisation,  nay,  the  very  life  of  Europe 
was  at  stake.  The  nations  were  rushing  towards  a  cataclysm 
the  like  of  which  had  never  yet  been  seen.  The  apparent 
law,  order,  and  decency  of  government  and  social  state 
was  nothing  but  a  show.  Governments  were  watching  to 
fly  at  each  other's  throats,  and  so  were  the  different  classes 
of  society.  It  was  only  fear  and  expediency  which  held 
them  back.  Law  was  entirely  set  aside  in  international 
relations,  it  would  soon  cease  to  be  considered  in  the  internal 
affairs  of  nations. 

Truth  had  ceased  to  be  part  of  the  equipment  of  diplo- 
matists; it  had  ceased  to  exist  in  the  communications  of 
governments  to  their  people.  The  newspapers  did  not 
exist  to  communicate  facts,  but  to  spread  lies,  to  make 
the  people  believe  what  successive  Governments  wished 
them  to  believe. 


214  DAVID  URQUHART 

In  this  way,  even  by  a  Government  like  that  of  England, 
which  called  itself  democratic,  all  power  and  responsibility 
was  taken  out  of  the  hands  of  the  people. 

But  not  only  did  the  Governments  hide  truth  from  the 
people,  they  were  themselves  blind  to  it.  What  European 
Governments  had  seen  the  meaning  of  the  German  Zoll- 
verein  ?  Who  had  believed  him  when  he  pointed  out  the 
safety  as  well  as  the  justice  of  safeguarding  the  independence 
of  the  Duchies  ?  How  he  had  been  laughed  to  scorn  when 
he  pointed  out  the  danger,  to  say  nothing  of  the  crime,  of 
conniving  at  the  slausrhter  of  Poland  and  the  fall  of 
Circassia  ! 

Greater  than  all  dangers  loomed  the  danger  of  Russia. 
Incomprehensible  to  the  mass  of  Englishmen,  a  stranger 
from  the  East,  whose  guile  was  more  dangerous  than  her 
force,  great  as  that  might  be;  whose  cruelty  was  beyond 
the  imagination  of  Europeans ;  who  had  not  cast  aside  Law, 
for  she  had  never  possessed  it;  whose  religion  under  her 
veneer  of  Christianity  was  still  barbarism,  regarded  only 
by  her  rulers  as  a  means  of  extending  their  power;  a  great 
monstrous  shadow,  rising  out  of  the  East,  ever  creeping 
on  over  civilisation,  blighting  all  on  which  she  rested,  whose 
greed  for  land  was  insatiable,  and  whose  only  mistress, 
desire.  Utterly  regardless  of  human  life,  she  fermented 
revolution  for  her  own  ends.  Her  agents  were  spread 
abroad  throughout  Europe  and  the  East,  she  gloated  over 
anarchy,  disorder,  and  unrest,  and  there  was  not  a  dis- 
turbance or  rising  in  Europe  at  which  she  had  not  been 
present,  leading  it  on  to  greater  and  greater  excesses  by 
her  whispers  and  suggestions,  or  by  her  open  preaching  of 
revolt.  In  the  Cabinets  of  Europe  it  had  ever  been  her 
mission  to  oppose  law  and  order  and  justice,  to  suggest 
and  induce  the  disregard  of  law,  to  foster  the  deceit  and 
disorder  by  which  she  throve.  She  would  not  rest,  her 
work  would  not  be  done,  till  the  capitals  of  Europe  were 
heaped-up  ruins.  Her  great  strength  lay  in  this,  that  men 
did  not  realise  either  her  aims  or  in  what  her  power  lay.^ 

-   See  Fallmerayer  in  Qeschichte  de$  Kaiserthvms  von  Trapezunt, 
Munich.  1S27. 


URQUHART  IN  SAVOY  215 

It  requires  no  prophetic  vision  to  see  in  the  fruit  what 
Urquhart  saw  in  the  flower. 

The  masses  are  to-day  swayed  by  pubUc  opinion,  and 
public  opinion  is  carefully  guarded  by  a  press,  not  only 
censored  but  bought.  The  papers  are  published  not  to 
tell  truth  but  to  conceal  it.  A  prominent  journalist  of  the 
time  has  described  the  press  as  a  machine  daily  plunging 
the  people  into  darkness  to  bring  out  a  purpose.^ 

Meanwhile,  though  the  War  is  over,  we  are  faced  with 
two  great  dangers.  The  first  is  neo-Prussianism.  The 
spirit  of  the  Zollverein,  though  hard  hit,  is  not  yet  dead. 
We  are  welding  the  German  peoples  together  by  the  very 
severity  of  the  Peace  terms  as  they  have  never  been  welded 
before. 

The  second  danger  is  greater  because  more  unknown. 
What  menace  to  Europe  lies  hid  in  that  land  of  mystery, 
which,  always  unknown,  has.  in  these  days  of  telegraph, 
telephone,  and  wireless,  withdrawn  itself  behind  a  thick 
veil  of  darkness  ? 

"  Every  nation."  said  Urquhart,  "  has  in  the  main  the 
government  it  deserves."  What,  then,  is  the  real  character 
ot  the  Russian  nation  ?  Did  its  duphcity  belong  entirely 
to  the  Czar  and  his  entourage,  and  are  its  greed  and  cruelty 
buried  for  ever  in  the  ruins  of  the  old  dynasty,  or  do  they 
still  penetrate  European  countries,  a  plague  and  a  menace  - 
as  they  did  in  the  days  when  the  hapless  Alexis,  so  like  in 
character  and  destiny  to  the  last  of  the  Romanoff  Emperors, 
was  tortured  and  done  to  death,  not  by  his  people,  but  by 
his  father  ? 

From  the  dangers  which,  to  his  prophetic  eye,  threatened 
to  engulf  Europe  Urquhart  saw  one  way  of  escape,  and  only 
one — the  revival  of  Law. 

Law,  to  him,  was  that  by  which  human  beings  could  weigh 
their  actions  and  measure  their  words.  It  was  the  earthly 
manifestation  of  Divine  Justice.  It  was  that  without 
which  this  ordered  Universe  would  fall  into  chaos.     For 

^  British  Review,  December,  1913. 

2  See  an  article  by  Ikbar  All  Shah  in  the  Contemporar)j  Review 
for  February,  1919,  on  the  Russian  menace. 


216  DAVID  URQUHART 

the  restoration  of  Law  Urqiihart  had  all  his  life  been  strug- 
gling, by  voice  and  by  pen,  finding  but  one  here  and  there 
who  could  understand  the  language  he  spoke. 

"  Voila  mon  etat,"  he  writes  to  the  Bishop  of  Rodez  in 
1869,  "  c'est  le  monde  qui  se  laisse  tuer  et  qui  aide  a  se 
faire  tuer  devant  mes  yeux  et  ce  n'est  pas  la  voix  qui  m'est 
coupee,  mais  c'est  que  mes  paroles  sont  incomprehensibles 
pour  ses  habitants." 

Urquhart  was  in  this  state  of  despair  over  the  condition 
of  the  world  when  the  Pope  declared  to  the  assembled 
bishops  his  intention  of  holding  a  General  Council  of  the 
Catholic  Church. 

He  was  not  the  only  social  reformer  to  whom  this  news 
came  as  a  ray  of  hope.  "  Je  viens  de  decouvrir  avec 
bonheur,  un  nouveau  point  de  contacte  entre  M.  Urquhart 
et  moi,"  writes  M.  Le  Play,  "en  ce  qui  concerne  la  re- 
generation de  I'Europe  par  I'influence  bienfaisante  directe 
ou  indirecte  des  conciles  cecumeniques.  ...  H  y  a  une 
influence  bienfaisante  qui  s'exercera  plus  utilement  encore 
au  profit  de  la  religion  et  de  I'humanite,  quand  I'Eglise 
universelle  reprenant  sa  tradition,  la  plus  ancienne,  sera 
de  nouveau  representee  par  des  conciles  reguliers." 

LTrquhart  was  even  more  enthusiastic  than  Le  Play. 
Here  was  the  Head  of  the  only  Body  in  the  world  which 
had  never  let  go  her  hold  on  the  Law,  who  himself  knew 
the  ruin  which  threatened  to  follow  the  arrogance  of  the 
modern  theory  of  the  State,  the  lawlessness  of  all  classes  of 
society,  proposing  to  hold  a  Council  to  avert  that  ruin. 
How  else  could  he  propose  to  do  it,  except  by  setting  forth 
the  Divine  Law,  that  the  nations  might  see  how  far  they 
had  departed  from  it  ? 

The  occasion  was  unique,  the  possibilities  infinite.  The 
Pope,  a  temporal  sovereign,  but  unbound  by  the  diplomatic 
fetters  of  other  rulers,  would,  from  his  capital,  which  was 
also  the  capital  of  Christendom,  proclaim  the  Law.  The 
blind  eyes  of  the  nations  would  be  opened.  They  would  see 
for  the  first  time  their  danger  and  their  safety:  their 
danger  in  their  own  carelessness  of  right,  and  their  tolerance 
of  acts  of  lawlessness  and  international  crime;  their  safety 


URQUHART  IN  SAVOY  217 

in  an  open,  universal  return  to  the  obedience  of  the  Law. 
East  and  West  would  unite  in  the  reign  of  Law. 

Out  of  the  spiritual  and  moral  regeneration  of  Europe 
would  come  peace  and  brotherhood,  an  end  of  war  and 
hatred.  Europe  would  be  free  from  the  menace  that  had 
hung  over  her  so  long,  for  in  the  wake  of  the  Council  would 
follow  organisations:  National  Courts,  where  each  nation 
would  decide  the  issues  of  peace  and  war  on  the  ground  of 
justice  alone;  a  great  College  for  the  study  and  codification 
of  Law,  for  the  training  of  men  to  think  internationally,  a 
school  through  which  the  affairs  of  Europe  would  pass,  so 
that  her  councils  could  no  longer  be  swayed  now  by  one 
great  Power,  now  by  another,  anxious  only  each  one  for 
her  own  self-aggrandisement. 

The  baseless  fabric  of  a  vision  !  The  vision  of  a  Utopia, 
one  of  those  cloudland  cities  towards  which  dreamers  in 
all  ages  of  the  world's  history  have  stretched  forth  weary 
arms  and  strained  aching  eyes  ! 

But  there  is  no  dream  without  a  reality  somewhere. 
And  every  true  dream  of  a  noble  dreamer  brings  the  reality 
nearer. 

Already  rose-tinted  fragments  of  Urquhart's  Dream  City 
are  floating  about  the  world. 

His  cloudland  City  of  Law  may  have  remained  in  the 
clouds,  but  since  he  pointed  it  out  men  have  seen  constant 
visions  of  it;  our  dark  and  lowering  sky  reflects  stray 
fragments  of  it. 

And  as  men,  when  they  see  in  the  sky  strange  and  wonder- 
ful mirages  of  cities  and  ships,  know  that,  though  they 
behold  a  vision,  the  reality  is  there,  so  it  is  with  us.  The 
vision  is  a  vision,  but  it  is  a  true  picture  of  a  reality  which 
exists  somewhere. 

The  world  of  ideas  is  as  real  as  the  world  of  facts;  nay, 
more  real:  it  is  to  ideas  that  facts  owe  their  birth. 


CHAPTER  XII 

URQUHART'S  ATTITUDE  TOWARDS  THE  CATHOLIC 

CHURCH 

"  Heaven,  which  man's  generations  draws, 
Nor  deviates  into  replicas, 
Must  of  as  deep  diversity 

In  judgment  as  creation  be." 

Francis  Thompson:   A  Judgment  in  Heaven. 

At  the  risk  of  repetition  it  seems  well,  at  this  point,  to 
attempt  some  explanation  of  Urquhart's  personal  attitude 
towards  the  Church  of  Rome,  which,  in  spite  of  his  great 
sympathy  with  her  social  and  political  standpoints,  and 
his  reverence  for  many  of  her  representatives,  remained  to 
the  end  of  his  public  life  substantially  what  it  was  at  the 
beginning. 

It  is  an  impossible  task,  often  as  it  has  been  attempted, 
to  make  any  hard-and-fast  rules  as  to  the  class  of  mind 
on  which  the  Catholic  Church  is  likely  to  exercise  her 
attraction. 

Many  of  those  who,  by  every  rule  of  psychology,  ought  to 
have  fallen  under  her  power  remain  untouched,  while  the 
most  unlikely  yield  to  it. 

Urquhart  neither  resisted  her  nor  wholly  yielded. 

It  might  have  been  argued  that  a  man  to  whose  nature 
freedom  and  independence  of  thought  were  the  breath  of 
life,  who  was  constantly  at  variance  with  things  as  they 
were,  who  was  a  sworn  foe  to  convention,  to  a  sheep-like 
following  of  accepted  theories  or  opinions,  who  laid  on  his 
private  judgment  all  the  burden  of  his  right  living  and 
thinking,  would  naturally  have  been  the  last  to  be  attracted 
lo  a  religious  institution  which,  by  common  repute,  was 
inimical  to  liberty  either  of  thought  or  of  action,  which 
insisted  on  a  slavish  following  of  rules,  maxims,  accepted 

218 


THE  CATHOLIC  CHURCH  219 

beliefs  and  theories,  which  held  men's  consciences  bound 
under  sin  to  follow  not  only  the  commandments  of  God^ 
but  the  dicta  of  men,  and  finally  insisted  that  all  private 
judgment  should  be  surrendered,  on  demand  and  irre- 
vocably, to  its  asserted  authority.  Or,  on  the  other  hand, 
if  he  did  admit  her  claims,  it  would  never  be  with  the  intel- 
lect, it  could  only  be  under  the  stress  of  such  great  and 
overwhelming  spiritual  emotion  as  would  demand  the 
supreme  sacrifice  of  his  whole  being,  of  action,  thought, 
judgment  and  will,  so  that  whatever  might  be  his  attitude 
towards  the  rest  of  the  world,  it  would  henceforth  be  towards 
the  Catholic  Church  one  of  absolute  submission. 

Neither  of  these  alternative  modes  of  action,  however, 
was  Urquhart's ;  he  adopted  instead  a  course  which  even  to 
a  student  of  his  character,  must  appear,  at  first  sight, 
surprising. 

On  the  one  hand  he  was  full  of  admiration  for  the  Catholic 
Church:  she  was  for  him  the  only  moral  force  in  Europe. 
Her  Head  had  alone  of  European  Sovereigns  commanded 
the  respect  of  and  even  put  the  fear  of  God  into  Napoleon.^ 

In  1842  Gregory  XVI.,  "with  a  solitary  regiment  of 
Guards,  had  dared  to  do  what  France,  England  and  Prussia, 
with  a  million  and  a  quarter  bayonets  at  their  disposal, 
had  feared  to  do  —  tax  the  Emperor  of  Russia  with  a 
lie  !" 

Urquhart  hailed  with  joy  the  remonstrance  which  the 
Pope  had  addressed  to  the  Czar  on  his  breach  of  the  Treaty 
of  Vienna  in  the  persecutions  of  both  Russian  and  Polish 
Catholics.  His  imagination  was  touched  by  the  spectacle 
of  the  Pontiff,  powerless  and  despised,  yet  alone  in  Europe 
venturing  to  call  to  account  for  his  deeds  the  Czar  of  all  the 
Russias. 

He  recalled  the  great  past  of  the  Church — great  not  in 
wealth  and  power,  but  in  the  righteousness  and  justice  in 
which  to-day  she  might  be  great  also : 

"  In  the  early  days,  the  Bishops  of  Rome  supplicated  to 
the  strong  and  interceded  for  the  weak.  And  they  de- 
nounced where  they  could  not  prevent.  Through  their 
thousands  of  priests  and  monks  they  laboured  in  the  remote 


220  DAVID  URQUHART 

boroughs,  through  their  prelates  and  nuncios  in  princely 
halls,  to  impress  respect  for  law,  charity  to  men.  They 
taught  the  young,  counselled  the  powerful,  protected  the 
weak,  and  thus  by  patient,  resigned  and  zealous  devotion 
to  the  task  of  teaching,  they  themselves  became  leaders, 
chiefs  and  princes.  This  power  was  gained  by  their  setting 
their  faces  against  oppression,  and  as  this  was  separately 
done  in  each  State  of  Christendom,  the  (Uiurch  simultane- 
ously rose  to  the  control  of  International  Relations.  Thus 
did  Religion  put  a  check  upon  the  passions  of  Nation  against 
Nation,  and  on  the  power  of  Prince  against  Prince.  .  .  . 
(To-day)  the  Pope  finds  Europe  exposed,  not  severally  to 
the  feudal  opjDression  of  King  and  Baron,  but  to  a  danger 
that  menaces  it  altogether.  He  warns  Europe;  he  must  go 
on  to  call  forth  all  the  mental  powers  possessed  by  his  See, 
and  they  are  tremendous,  whensoever  employed,  to  resist 
the  common  enemy  by  awakening  all  other  States  to  a 
sense  of  their  danger,  and  by  recalling  to  the  hearts  of  men 
a  sense  of  Justice,  without  which  that  danger  cannot  be 
averted.  All  other  Powers  having  abandoned  this  defence 
he  stands  forth  alone  as  the  Defender  of  EurojDe.  It  is  a 
mightier  task  than  that  of  his  predecessors — than  that  by 
the  accomplishment  of  which  his  predecessors  raised  the 
Popedom  to  the  highest  level  of  earthly  dignity  and  spiritual 
preponderance  over  the  Western  World." 

The  Papacy  was  to  Urquhart  the  earthly  representative 
of  the  Divine  Justice.  She  was  the  one  Power  out  of  all 
the  world  which  could  stand  against  the  evil  incarnate  of 
autocracy,  aggression  and  oppression.  She  was  the  source 
of  Law  and  the  Law-giver  to  Europe.  She  was  the 
Guardian  of  the  Tradition,  which  is  the  safeguard  of 
Doctrine.  Her  power  depended  not  on  circumstances,  but 
on  her  empire  over  the  hearts  and  consciences  of  men. 

The  Popes,  in  the  past,  had  been  guilty  of  pride  and 
arrogance,  and,  in  the  present,  the  fear  of  man,  timidity 
and  vacillation  had  ruled  their  counsels;  but  if  the  saying 
"By  their  fruits  ye  shall  know  them"  had  any  meaning 
at  all,  then  he,  and  those  lilte-minded  with  him,  were  right 
in  regarding  the  Papacy  as  the  one  steady  light  amid  dark- 
ness, the  one  hope  for  the  safety  of  Europe;  for  amid  all 
her  failures  she  had  never  failed  through  long  centuries  to 


THE  CATHOLIC  CHURCH  221 

hold  up  to  the  Nations  the  Commandments  of  God  for  their 
entire  and  unswerving  obedience. 

It  is  perhaps  the  most  irrefutable  proof  of  the  justice 
of  the  Church's  claim  to  spiritual  empire  that  each  man 
discovers  in  her  the  fulfilment  of  the  needs  of  his  own 
nature. 

Urquhart  found  in  her  the  fount  and  guardian  of  Law; 
and  in  the  Pope  he  found  the  Law-giver.  In  the  Papal 
Infallibility  he  firmly  beheved,  even  before  the  promulgation 
of  the  Decree,  though  perhaps  his  explanation  of  it  would 
not  have  generally  commended  itself  to  Catholics. 

It  followed  in  his  mind  as  a  natural  corollary  to  his  behef 
in  the  power  of  individual  man  to  be  right,  that  there  must 
be  an  organisation  in  the  world,  an  authority  which  was  con- 
sciously able  not  to  err.  That  organisation,  that  authority, 
he  found  in  the  CathoUc  Church. 

If  the  Church  was  able  to  be  right,  so  must  also  its  head 
and  voice.  "  To  deny  it,"  he  said,  "  makes  the  body  a 
corpse;  it  is  like  the  head  of  John  the  Baptist  in  a  charger." 

It  was,  in  fact,  the  Pope  on  whom  Urquhart's  eyes  were 
fixed  when  he  spoke  of  the  Church.  To  him  the  Pope  was 
not  only  the  great  authority  and  teacher.  He  was  the 
ideal  Sovereign  beneath  whose  rule,  founded  as  it  was  on 
absolute  justice,  the  peoples  might  have  dwelt  in  freedom 
and  security  alike  from  the  twin- tyrannies  of  force  and 
legislation.  Such  he  had  been,  in  theory  at  least,  in  the 
Middle  Ages,  such  he  might  be  now  in  an  even  truer  sense 
if  he  would  but  stand  firm  against  the  Anti-Christ,^  which 
had  overshadowed  Europe  and  over  which  he  alone  on  earth 
had  power. 

When  Urquhart  was  apprised  by  an  Oxford  friend  that 
there  were  those  who  were  startled,  and  even  shocked,  at 
finding  a  tendency,  if  not  to  a  union  with  the  Church  of 
Rome,  at  least  to  a  great  admiration  for  her  doctrines  and 
practice,  he  answered  that  in  dealing  with  reUgion  he 
looked  ''  to  the  obhgations  it  imposes,  not  to  the  Creed  it 
professes,  and  it  was  in  that  respect  that  he  placed  the 

1  To  Mm  the  Anti-Christ  was  any  power  wliicli  did  not  acknowledge 
Law;  it  was,  he  believed,  incarnate  in  his  times  in  Kussia. 


222  DAVID  URQUHART 

Church  of  Rome  far  above  any  Protestant  body."  "  The 
former  had,"  he  said,  ''  preserved  traditions  of  better  times, 
and  had  not  propounded  that  monstrous  doctrine  which 
extinguishes  the  citizen  and  the  Christian:  'Religion  and 
pohtics  are  distinct.'  "^ 

On  the  other  hand,  for  all  his  admiration,  Urquhart's 
atticude  towards  the  Catholic  Church  was  never  that  of 
submission;  his  veneration  for  the  great  past  of  the  Papacy 
went  along  with  a  clear  view  of  what  he  considered  to  be 
her  faults,  and  an  unsparing  denunciation  of  them. 

In  the  hey-dey  of  her  power  as  a  temporal  Sovereignty, 

1  That  the  respect  between  Uiquhait  and  the  Catholic  Church 
was  mutual  can  be  seeu  iu  a  Review  on  his  i'reatise  ""  The  Duty  ot 
the  Church  ot  Euglaud  in  regard  to  Unlawtul  War  "  which  appeared 
iu  the  Catholic  Magazine  tor  July,  18-13.  In  the  course  ot  his  remarks 
the  reviewer  says:  "  This  is  a  welcome  monograph  trom  the  pen  ot  an 
eminent  diplomatist  ot  this  country,  whose  valuable  contributions 
to  our  store  oi  knowledge  upon  the  policy  ot  Russia — more  especially 
as  regards  our  possessions  m  the  East — give  him  a  standing  title  to 
tlie  pubUc  atteniion,  whenever  he  may  cnoose  to  claim  it. 

"  i'he  inferiority  of  British  diplomatists  is  the  laughing-stock  of 
the  whole  ot  the  diplomatic  world,  it  the  Russians  have  over-reached 
and  ridiculed  us  in  every  negotiation  from  the  Treaty  of  Vienna 
downwards,  we  have  only  ourselves  to  thank  for  it.  .  .  . 

'•  Mr.  Urquhart,  being  of  too  high  a  mind  to  engage  in  diplomacy 
upon  the  customary  terms  of  knowing  nothing  about  it,  began  public 
lue  by  making  himself  master  of  his  subject.  This  achievement, 
superadded  to  a  stock  of  principle  and  patriotic  ardour,  altogether 
irregular  and  unofficial,  very  soon  insured  him  the  open  hostility 
of  ^is  already  jealous  associates.  Downing  Street  and  he  parted 
company,  and  returned,  tlie  former  to  its  wallowing  in  the  mire, 
tlie  latter  to  the  prosecution  of  liis  generous  and  far-reaching  plans 
for  the  salvation  of  an  empire  jeopardised  by  the  apathy  of  the 
nation  and  its  blind  confidence  in  weak  or  traitorous  servants.  The 
first  of  the  treatises  named  at  the  head  ot  our  own  article  endeavours 
to  set  in  motion  an  old  Catholic  principle,  which  from  the  Reformation 
downwards  had  gradually  subsided  into  inert  and  deathlike  repose. 
It  seeks  to  revive  amongst  Protestants  a  doctrine  that  has  almost 
been  forgotten  in  practice  among  ourselves.  In  unfavourable  days, 
and  to  an  unbelieving  and  evil  generation,  he  presents  again  the  true 
principle  that  was  paramount  in  the  days  when  Christendom  was 
great.  In  a  land  which  resounds  with  the  parrot-like  repetitions 
of  the  same  trite  phrase,  importing  a  heresy  in  one  of  its  acceptations, 
and  a  silly  truism  in  the  other  that  '  the  Church  has  nothing  to  do 
with  politics,'  this  Protestant  and  diplomatist  has  not  hesitated  to 
avow  that  it  is  at  all  times  the  duty  of  the  Church  of  God  to  make 
clear  what  is  doubtful  in  public  as  well  as  in  private  affairs,  and  that 
unless  it  denounces  the  crime  of  which  the  public  or  the  State 
is  guilty  or  about  to  become  so,  its  sanction  is  tacitly  given  to  the 
wickedness  which  it  has  not  exerted  itself  to  resist." 


THE  CATHOLIC  CHURCH  223 

though  she  had  been  free  from  territorial  ambition  and 
had  never  been  guilty  of  oppression  of  the  poor,  she  had 
been  lordly  and  domineering  over  her  equals. 

For  the  Reformation  which  was  fraught  with  such  dire 
consequences  to  the  whole  of  Europe,  she  was  herself  largely 
responsible  by  her  failure  to  see  and  reform  her  own  abuses. 
And  though,  after  that  cataclysm,  she  had  been  the  first 
to  recover  herself,  and  had  nobly  re-estabhshed  Public  Law 
in  her  place  of  honour  before  the  Nations  of  Europe,  it 
was  her  failure  to  live  up  to  that  law,  to  maintain  it  against 
the  powers  of  the  world,  which  had  involved  the  world  in 
lawlessness. 

Though  the  Pope  had  saved  his  own  soul  by  refusing  to 
take  any  part  in  the  Holy  Alliance,  he  had  failed  to  rule 
his  own  household,  and  in  the  eyes  of  Europe  he  had  been 
himself  incriminated  by  the  part  which  the  ApostoUc 
Emperor  played  at  that  Congress.  His  own  moral  force 
was  weakened  when,  instead  of  upholding  Poland  in  her 
resistance  to  injustice,  he  had,  by  his  Rescript  enjoining  on 
her  obedience  to  Russia,  weakly  surrendered  Right  to 
Mght. 

When  the  CathoUc  Emancipation  Act  was  passed  in 
England,  no  lead  was  given  to  CathoUcs  as  to  the  part  they 
ought  to  play  in  the  nation  of  which  they  were  once  more 
the  potential  legislators.  The  whole  modern  history  of 
Europe  must  have  been  different  if  Enghsh  and  Irish 
Cathohcs,  instead  of  being  allowed  to  drift  into  traditional 
party  factions,  had  entered  Parhament  with  some  of  the 
spirit  of  their  mediaeval  predecessors,  and  had  banded 
themselves  together  for  the  defence  of  Europe. 

Writing  to  an  Irish  Catholic  Archbishop  in  1840,Urquhart 
remonstrated  as  follows  with  the  policy  which  the  Catholic 
Hierarchy  were  pursuing: 

''  But,  my  Lord,  I  do  say  that  much  more  laudable  it 
had  been  for  the  votes  of  Cathohc  Ireland  to  have  been 
registered  on  the  side  of  Law  and  Justice.  The  strength 
wnich  placed  Downing  Street  at  their  mercy  would  have 
warded  off  many  a  blow  from  the  Empire  and  its  foreign 
AlUes  and  well-wishers ;  had  the  Irish  members  known  how 


224  DAVID  URQUHART 

to  keep  themselves  from  faction,  Poland  would  have  been 
free,  Circassia  would  have  been  at  peace.  The  Ottoman 
Empire  would  have  been  independent.  The  Peninsula 
would  have  been  enjoying  the  blessings  of  a  restored,  instead 
of  the  curses  of  a  fabricated.  Constitution.  Austria  would 
have  remained  what  she  was,  England's  bulwark  against 
Russia.  China  would  not  have  known  England,  save  as 
her  distant  and  friendly  customer.  Afghanistan  would 
not  have  been  laid  waste,  its  cities  burned,  its  children 
slaughtered.  .  .  .  The  Church,  my  Lord,  was  ever  the 
authority  between  Nation  and  Nation,  King  and  People, 
citizen  and  citizen.  The  whole  field  of  political  science  is 
but  an  acre  in  the  vast  domain  of  duty.  You,  my  Lord, 
are  one  of  the  tillers  of  the  soil.  It  is  the  proper  scene  of 
your  labours,  for  it  is  also  your  inheritance." 

There  is  little  doubt  that  had  the  Catholic  Church  of 
those  days  preserved  the  tradition  of  the  time  when  men 
knew  her  for  the  organised  Kingdom  of  Good,  ruling  earthly 
kingdoms,  and  contending  against  the  Kingdom  of  Evil, 
Urquhart  would  have  thrown  in  his  lot  whole-heartedly 
with  her.  He  loved  her  present  form  because  it  seemed 
to  him  instinct  with  her  ancient  spirit. 

"  The  Church  of  Rome,"  he  says,  "is  in  form,  and  was 
in  spirit,  more  of  a  legal  than  a  religious  body.  How  else 
could  her  jurisdiction  have  extended  beyond  the  diocese. 
The  Fathers,  the  writers  on  Canon  Law,  the  morahsts  were 
all  lawyers,  making  the  Law,  executing  the  Law,  teaching  it 
to  boys,  enjoining  it  on  Kings." 

These  words  contain  the  kernel  of  Urquhart's  attraction 
to  the  Mediaeval  Church.  It  was  the  home  of  Law;  and 
Law  was  to  him  the  earthly  expression  of  the  Divine  Justice. 
In  her  great  organisation  each  kingdom,  each  diocese,  each 
parish,  down  to  the  smallest  hamlet  of  the  most  remote 
province  had  its  own  Court,  its  own  Tribunal,  its  own 
Judge.  The  Mediseval  Church  established  and  maintained, 
not  only  the  Divine  Law  against  spiritual  evil,  but  she 
maintained  against  the  feudalism  of  the  Middle  Ages  an 
ordered  freedom,  a  reign  of  Law;  in  the  midst  of  tyranny 
she  was  the  champion  of  the  Rights  of  Man:  the  only  true 
Democratic  Institution  then  in  the  world.     Here  was  the  true 


THE  CATHOLIC  CHURCH  225 

bond  of  union  between  Urquhart  and  the  Church.  In  his 
love  of  Justice  his  soul  reached  down  to  a  depth  where  it 
was  at  one  with  the  deep  soul  of  the  Church,  that  eternal 
and  universal  part  of  her  which  is  affected  neither  by  time 
nor  place,  and  takes  no  colour,  as  in  her  outward  structure 
she  is  bound  to  do,  from  the  age  through  which  she  passes. 
She  was  imperfect,  though  he  felt  her  to  be  the  most  perfect 
reUgious  system  of  which  he  knew,  and  the  spiritual  home 
he  failed  to  find  in  her  he  found  nowhere  else. 

He  had  outworn  Calvinism  in  his  youth,  and  though  for 
many  years  he  had  nominally  belonged  to  the  Church  of 
England,  there  was  scarcely  anything  in  her  past  history, 
in  her  discipline,  in  her  conduct  with  regard  to  inter- 
national affairs,  or  in  the  public  actions  and  utterances  of 
her  ministers,  from  the  Archbishop  of  Canterbury  down- 
wards, to  which  he  could  give  whole-hearted  adherence. 
Her  acquiescence  in  the  oppression  of  the  poor  and  in  the 
abuses  of  the  Poor  Law;  her  attitude  towards  the  wrongs 
and  injustices  done  to  Ireland;  her  failure  to  protest  against 
wars  of  injustice  and  dishonour,  drew  from  him  constant 
and  stern  protests.^  The  subversion  of  the  clergy  to  the 
State  had  many  times  forced  him  to  leave  some  church  in 
the  midst  of  the  clergyman's  discourse  rather  than  appear 
to  approve  it  by  remaining.  But  he  reached  the  high- 
water-mark  of  his  indignation  when  the  Bishop  of  Oxford 
condoned,  at  a  public  meeting,  the  iniquitous  peace  with 
China  in  1859,  by  proclaiming  that  through  it  "God  had 
opened  the  door  for  the  Gospel  in  China." 

^  "  The  Churcli  of  England,  havmg  assimilated  itself  to  tlie  Church 
of  Russia,  first  sanctioned  the  support  of  England  to  such  deeds  when 
committed  by  Russia,  and  now  sanctions  them  when  perpetrated  by 
England  herself.  ...  To  the  teachers  and  preachers  of  our  time, 
the  words  '  blood  '  and  '  iniquity  '  have  no  meaning.  To  them  the 
one  is  '  war  '  and  the  other  '  policy.'  With  these  they  have  no  con- 
cern, and,  neglecting  the  graver  matters  of  the  Law,  they  attend  to 
the  mint  and  cummin :  they  can  be  agitated  about  surplices,  convulsed 
by  an  epithet,  occupied  with  baptismal  fonts  and  church  architecture. 
They  have  wrapped  themselves  round  in  a  cloak  of  slime,  they  have 
embedded  their  consciences  in  lees  of  mud,  and  neither  arguments 
from  without,  nor  denunciations  from  within,  the  Book  of  God 
which  they  handle,  or  the  denunciations  of  men  which  they  hear, 
can  touch,  awake,  arouse,  or  give  lile."  Portfolio.  New  Series. 
Vol.  II.    No.  5.     "The  three  Religio-Pohtical  Systems  of  Europe." 

15 


226  DAVID  URQUHAUT 

He  had  come  across  the  Oxford  Movement  to  be  either 
entirely  untouched  by  it,  or  contemptuous  of  it.  ''A 
religion  of  pews  and  surplices,"  he  calls  it.  His  intimate 
friend  and  parUamentary  twin,  Thomas  Chrisholm  Anstey, 
had  passed  through  it  to  develop  into  an  ardent  Catholic 
and  a  keen  disciple  of  Urquhart. 

The  only  other  Tractarian  with  whom  he  came  in  close 
contact  was  William  George  Ward.^  Urquhart  in  review- 
ing^ his  famous  book,  The  Ideal  of  a  Christian  Church,  is 
divided  between  admiration  for  the  writer's  enUghtenment 
and  surprise  at  his  ignorance.  He  expresses  his  astonish- 
ment at  a  remark  that  it  v/as  "  for  the  Church  of  England 
to  set  forth  works  on  International  Morality  covering  more 
ground  than  the  Roman  theologians,"  since  "  neither  Paley 
nor  the  Romans  seem  to  have  gone  deeply  enough  into  it." 
"More  ground,"  says  the  reviewer,  "covered,  than  by 
Roman  works  on  International  Morality  !  Such  words 
proceeding  from  a  man  of  the  powers  of  Mr.  Ward  !" 

Urquhart  goes  on  in  the  same  review  to  describe  some- 
thing of  what  the  CathoHc  Church  had  done  in  the  way  of 
setting  forth  International  Morality,  and  at  the  same  time 
expresses  great  hope  for  Mr.  Ward  by  reason  of  his  appre- 
hension of  what  most  men  in  his  day  seem  to  have  forgotten 
or  to  be  unconscious  of — the  existence  of  "  National  fSin." 

^  There  is  amongst  his  papers  an  account  of  a  visit  to  Newman 
at  Lifctlemore  in  1844.  Newman  seems  to  have  been  impressed  by 
him,  introduced  him  to  Charles  Marriott  and  to  W.  Gr.  Ward  and 
suggested  him  calling  upon  Mozely.  "  The  man  on  whom  my  hopes 
prmcipally  at  present  depend,"  he  writes,  "  is  Mr  Ward.  This 
man  was  quoted  on  both  sides  as  the  man  of  greatest  intellectual 
power  in  the  University." 

Urquhart  and  Monteith  seem  to  have  been  engaged  at  this  time 
in  making  a  missionary  tour  of  Oxford  colleges.  Monteith  expresses 
himself  as  dehghted  v.ith  the  "  quietness,  gravity,  and  indifference 
to  the  singularity  of  facts  at  first  sight  "  which  they  found  at  the 
University,     It  reminded  him  of  the  operatives'  attitude. 

"  For  my  part,"  he  says,  "  I  am  delighted,  Mr.  Urquhart  has 
Been,  up  to  this  time,  some  thirty  men  at  University,  Merton,  Balliol, 
and  Oriel.  A  Mr.  Woolcombe,  Tutor  at  BaUiol,  brought  us  and  Mr. 
Ward  in  contact  at  breakfast.  A  conversation  from  9  till  11,  and 
now  they  are  out  walking,  from  2  till  5.     This  is  all  very  sa,tisfactory. 

"iWe  dine  in  Hall  at  Merton  to-morrow,  breakast  at  University, 
and  there  are  various  other  appointments." 

'  Fortfolio.     New  Series,  No.  12. 


THE  CATHOLIC  CHUilCH  227 

The  review  led  to  several  interviews  between  Ward  and 
Urquhart,  who  describes  them  and  their  result  as  follows  : 

"  As  for  Mr.  Ward,  no  fruits  have  followed  our  conversa- 
tions, though  these  have  been  continuous,  prolonged, 
earnest,  travelling  to  past  times,  remote  regions,  both  for 
comparison  and  instruction,  and  this  in  reference  to  our 
duty,  what  his,  what  mine.  At  the  close,  the  question 
was  what  he  could  effect ;  the  further  path  lay  through  the 
desert;  he  had  to  come  out  from  amongst  men  and  enter 
into  himself ;  and  in  lieu  of  all  that  his  present  position  has 
of  enjoyment  in  the  opinion  of  men,  their  hate  and  reviling, 
as  in  corrupt  times  has  been  and  must  be  the  fate  of  wit- 
nesses against  sin.  To  these  thoughts  did  he  seem  lifted 
up,  and  to  this  resolution  did  his  Ups  adhere.  Nothing  has 
followed." 

However,  the  following  year  Ward  did  go  out  into  the 
desert,  though  not  in  Urquhart's  sense.  He  left  his  place 
and  work  in  Oxford  and  was  received  into  the  Catholic 
Church.  Perhaps  the  discovery  which  he  could  not  have 
failed  to  make  during  those  "  continuous  and  prolonged 
and  earnest  conversations,"  that  the  Catholic  Church  had 
apprehended  and  condemned  National  Sin,  that  it  would 
be  difficult  for  him  and  his  friends  to  find  unbroken  ground 
to  dig  up  in  the  field  of  National  Morality,  led  him  to  throw 
in  his  lot  finally  with  the  great  army  which  for  so  many 
centuries  had  been  fighting  National  Sin  and  International 
Immorality  by  the  Public  Law,  which  was  the  only  effective 
weapon  against  it. 

But  neither  Ward's  example  nor  Anstey's  was  one  which 
Urquhart  found  himself  able  to  follow. 

Not  all  that  he  knew  of  the  power  and  virtue  of  the 
Church,  not  all  the  influence  of  Catholic  friends,  not  all  the 
admiration  and  friendship  of  his  later  years  for  many  of 
the  eminent  Catholics  amongst  whom  his  lot  was  cast,  was 
strong  enough  to  overcome  the  reasons  which  he  brought 
forward  against  such  a  step.  Most  of  these  reasons  he 
attributed  to  the  Church  herself,  but  there  are  others  which 
we,  in  looking  back  on  his  life,  must  find  in  his  own  character. 

He  always  thought  that  the  Church  laid  too  much  stress 
on  the  holding  of  certain  doctrines  and  of  faith  in  them. 


228  DAVID  URQUHART 

To  Urquhart  conduct  was  all-important.  The  Church,  he 
maintained,  as  she  grew  more  stringent  in  her  demands  on 
a  man's  faith,  had  become  laxer  in  regard  to  his  conduct. 
Particularly  this  applied  to  his  conduct  as  member  of  a 
Community. 

She  had,  it  is  true,  never  dared  to  take  up  the  doctrine, 
which  certain  of  the  Reformed  Churches  had  adopted  at  the 
Reformation,  and  deny  the  right  of  Religion  to  interfere 
in  Politics,  but  she  had  become  silent  where  she  used  to 
speak,  and  had  grown  complaisant  when  of  old  she  would 
have  condemned. 

Such  of  her  popular  devotions  too  as  had  come  under  his 
notice  seemed  to  him  unworthy.  All  the  various  devices 
for  overcoming  the  resistance  of  the  natural  man  to  piety 
he  could  neither  understand  nor  sympathise  with. 

He  deprecated  the  loss  of  freedom  and  consequently  of 
individuality,  strength  and  vitality  which  had  resulted  from 
the  growing  centrahsation  of  her  government. 

The  reasons  which  Catholics  were  accustomed  to  put 
before  him  as  motives  for  his  conversion  were  abhorrent  to 
him.  The  idea  of  becoming  a  Catholic  to  save  his  own 
soul  was  one  which  he  never  entertained  for  a  moment. 
The  ultimate  end  of  religion  was  not  a  selfish  one;  it  could 
not  be  regarded  primarily  as  a  means  of  salvation — that 
could  only  be  wrought  by  resistance  to  evil  in  others,  and 
sin  in  oneself. 

Nor  was  it  a  provision  for  happiness  and  peace;  it  was 
an  oath  by  which  one  was  bound — in  his  case  bound  to 
labour.  The  removal  of  hardness  from  the  path  of  her 
children,  the  fact  that  she  no  longer  demanded  strenuous 
effort  from  them,  but  rather  seemed,  he  thought,  to  en- 
courage them  to  inaction,  was  in  his  eyes  the  strongest 
mark  of  the  modern  degeneracy  of  the  Church  and  enough 
of  itself  to  bar  him  from  her  communion. 

On  the  other  hand,  there  were  reasons,  equally  potent, 
in  Urquhart's  own  character  why  he  never  became  a 
Catholic. 

He  had  not,  to  begin  with,  the  CathoUc  conception  of 
Truth.     The  search  after  Truth,  to  him,  lay  not  in  any 


THE  CATHOLIC  CHURCH  229 

attempt  to  arrive  at  a  right  apprehension  of  eternal  verities?, 
a  true  estimate  of  man's  relation  to  the  unseen  world,  but 
in  sincerity  in  his  actual  relations  with  his  fellows. 

So  also  with  his  theory  of  perfection.  He  saw  the  human 
imperfections  of  CathoUcs.  He  had  his  own  vision  of  per- 
fection, to  which  the  Church  in  her  outward  manifestations 
did  not  correspond.  He  constantly  found  himself  criticising 
her.  To  have  thrown  in  his  lot  with  her  would  have  meant, 
in  his  code  of  honesty,  to  signify  his  approval  of  all  her 
acts.     Therefore  he  remained  apart  from  her. 

But  the  most  vital  reason  lay  in  Urquhart's  lack  of  what 
we  sometimes  carelessly  speak  of  as  "  spiritual  life,"  mean- 
ing thereby  a  life  of  conscious  worship,  of  conscious  prayer, 
of  conscious  Sacramental  union.  Such  a  life  is  sui  generis  ; 
it  may  be  intense,  it  may  be  feebly  stirring,  but  in  any  case 
it  is  a  different  thing  from  an  unconscious  life.  No  one 
can  have  had  a  more  intense  inner  life  than  Urquhart. 
That  life  was  one  prolonged  thought  of  holiness,  one  pro- 
longed prayer  of  action;  one  "daily  and  hourly  endeavour 
to  be  a  Christian."  But  it  was  the  intense  healthful,  bound- 
ing life  of  youth  that  has  not  realised  itself— a  life  so  occu- 
pied with  the  life  of  the  world  around  that  it  cannot  be 
interested  in  its  own. 

Urquhart's  life,  moreover,  was  one  of  heroic  reparation, 
springing  from  intense  repentance  for  an  act  which  he  alone 
judged  and  condemned  as  a  crime. 

Just  as  he  stood  alone  in  his  condemnation  of  the  age, 
so  he  stood  alone  in  his  condemnation  of  himself. 

In  this,  is  he  not  at  one  with  some  of  the  great  saints  of 
the  Church — with  Ignatius  Loyola  himself  ? 

But  as  he  followed  the  Truth,  as  it  seemed  to  him,  in  his 
condemnation  of  himself,  so  he  followed  it  later  on  in  the 
judgment  he  passed  on  the  Church. 

"  If  the  Church  is  divine,"  he  said  to  his  wife  at  the  time 
of  the  Vatican  Council,  "  she  will  take  her  stand  firmly  on 
the  side  of  right,  against  all  the  Governments  in  the  world. 
If  she  does  so,  I  will  be  a  Catholic." 

It  was  a  test,  and  an  unfair  one,  though  that  Urquhart 
did  not  realise. 


230  DAVID  URQUHART 

Man  may  not,  moreover,  bargain  with  God  and  His 
Church. 

Therefore,  like  Moses  from  the  heights  of  Pisgah,  Urquhart 
viewed  a  Promised  Land  which  he  never  entered. 

But,  unlike  Moses,  he  came  to  think  that  the  Promised 
Land  was  only  a  mirage;  his  want  of  faith  shut  him  out, 
not  only  from  the  Land,  but  from  the  consolation  of  knowing 
it  was  there. 

Nevertheless,  those  who  could  best  judge  of  him  were 
more  than  content  to  leave  him,  like  Moses,  in  the  hands 
of  the  God  he  had  so  faithfully  served. 

The  Catholic  priests  who  knew  him  most  intimately, 
however  much  they  regretted  his  attitude  towards  the 
Church,  were  not  seriously  disturbed  by  it. 

They  stood  with  veneration  before  a  life  of  so  great 
devotion. 

They  saw  that  he  achieved  what  others  only  talked  of 
or  aspired  to. 

"  He  followed  up  to  the  heights,"  said  one,  after  his 
death,  "  the  light  he  had.     God  will  look  after  him." 


CHAPTER  XIII 

THE  APPEAL  TO  THE  POPE 

"  Thou  spakest  sometimes  in  visions  unto  Thy 
Saints  and  saidest: 

I  have  laid  help  upon  One  that  is  mighty, 
I  have  exalted  one  chosen  out  of  the  people." 

Psalm  Ixxxix.     (Prayer  Book  Version.) 

"  Justitia  et  Judicium  prteparatio  sedis  tuae  " 

Psalm  Ixxxviii.     (Vulgate.) 

■'  For  myself,  I  cease  not  night  or  day  from  the  task,  nor 
have  ceased  since  the  light  broke  in  upon  me  and  showed 
me  to  myself  to  be  a  reprobate  and  an  assassin." 

So  Urquhart  wrote  to  Baron  Schroeder  in  1 868.  For  more 
than  forty  years  had  this  ceaseless  toil  gone  on.  In  the 
accomplishment  of  the  expiation  which  he  had  marked  out 
for  himself  he  had  suffered  the  loss  of  career,  reputation, 
friends,  health,  and  means.  But  his  efforts  had  never 
relaxed.  After  each  losing  battle  he  prepared  for  another, 
hoping  against  hope  to  open  the  eyes  of  his  fellow-men  to 
the  mortal  sin  in  which  the  world  was  involved.  In  his 
own  country  there  was  a  steady  design  to  keep  him  from 
gaining  the  public  ear.  "  For  years,"  he  said,  "  I  have 
tried  in  vain  to  get  myself  prosecuted." 

Joined  to  the  conspiracy  of  silence  was  a  conspiracy  of 
ridicule,  and  those  who  had  most  to  fear  from  what  he 
could  say  laughed  loudest  and  longest. 

In  the  East  he  had  never  lost  the  hearing  he  had  gained. 
Amongst  working  men  there  had  always  been  those  un- 
sophisticated enough  to  understand  the  simple  morality  he 
preached. 

Now  he  had  gained  another  public,  this  time  amongst  the 
Catholics  of  France.  "  There  are  two  sets  of  people,"  he 
wrote  to  his  friend  Rustem  Bey,  the   Turkish  Envoy  in 

23X 


232  DAVID  URQUHART 

Italy,  before  the  Sultan's  visit  to  Europe  in  1867,  "with 
whom  it  would  be  worth  while  to  establish  an  understand- 
ing— the  English  working  man  and  the  French  Catholic 
party.     All  the  rest  are  blind." 

It  was  with  the  French  Catholics  that  he  was  to  establish 
his  warmest  relations. 

The  chalet  among  the  snows  of  the  Alps  was  impossible 
as  a  winter  residence.  The  first  winter  of  his  life  abroad 
found  him  with  his  wife  and  family  at  Nice.  There  he 
met  the  Bishop  of  Orleans,  Mgr.  Dupanloup.  The  two 
were  mutually  attracted,  Urquhart  by  the  Bishop's  "  im- 
mense capacity,"  Dupanloup  apparently  by  Urquhart's 
deep  insight  into  the  political  situation,  especially  as  regards 
Russia. 

It  was,  however,  in  the  little  town  of  Rheims,  thronged 
with  the  memories  of  her  past  greatness,  wistful  with  the 
mysterious  prophecies  of  her  future  sufferings,  that  the 
direction  of  Urquhart's  future  work  was  decided.  It  was 
one  of  those  strange  happenings  of  which  his  life  was  full, 
one  of  those  chance  encounters  which  point  to  the  guiding 
of  a  Providence  in  the  working  out  of  a  fate.  Rheims  was 
at  that  time  the  centre  of  a  little  school  of  French  Canonists, 
a  circle  of  men  sufficiently  humble  but  withal  learned  and 
devout.  They  heard  of  Urquhart  and  saw  some  of  his 
writings  through  the  visits  to  Rheims  of  a  French  lawyer 
of  Belfort,  Juvigny.  They  were  amazed  and  delighted. 
"  For  years,"  said  one,  the  Pere  JuUion,  "  have  I  been  cast 
down  by  the  thought  that  Justice  had  left  the  world;  have 
I  been  searching  in  vain  for  a  man  who,  knowing  what  we 
had  lost,  would  work  with  me  to  restore  it.  At  last  I  have 
found  him." 

At  the  pressing  invitation  of  two  members  of  the  little 
group,  Pere  JuUion  and  the  Abbe  Defourny,  Urquhart  went 
to  Rheims. 

That  visit  was  the  beginning  of  a  close  and  intimate 
friendship  with  Juvigny,  Pere  Jullion,  the  Abbe  Defourny, 
Pere  Aymond,  and  "  the  saint  "  of  the  little  circle,  Pere 
Philippe.  Not  only  were  his  words  on  Righteousness, 
Justice,  the  sin,  danger,  and  evil  in  which  the  world  lay. 


THE  APPEAL  TO  THE  POPE  233 

understood  almost  before  he  uttered  them,  but  words  from 
which  his  own  might  have  been  taken  went  out  to  answer 
them.  There  at  Rheims,  for  the  first  time,  the  Canon  Law 
was  opened  to  him.  His  astonishment  and  delight  knew 
no  bounds.     Here  was  the  goal  of  his  lifelong  search. 

But,  on  the  very  threshold,  he  was  faced  with  a  difficulty. 

''Why,"  he  asked,  "if  this  is  the  Law  of  your  Church, 
does  not  the  Church  proclaim  it  to  the  world  ?  Why  do 
Catholics  fight  in  the  unjust  wars  of  their  Governments 
without  raising  a  protest  ?  Why  do  Catholic  nations  know 
no  more  of  public  morality  than  Protestant  ?"  Pere  Collet, 
the  secretary  of  the  Bishop  of  Geneva,  answered  him:  "  It 
is  because  out  of  our  Catechisms  we  have  dropped  the 
teaching  of  the  Law;  because  no  longer  do  we  teach  our 
children  that  unjust  war  is  robbery  and  murder." 

By  this  time  Urquhart  had  many  Catholic  friends  in 
England.  Not  to  speak  of  his  devoted  disciples,  Monteith 
and  Lord  Denbigh,  he  had  gained  the  ear  of  Archbishop 
Manning,  to  whom  Pere  Jullion  wrote:  "  I  believe  that  Mr 
Urquhart,  who  is  evidently  chosen  of  God,  who  bears  in 
his  soul  an  image  come  straight  down  from  Heaven  in  his 
great  intellect,  is  nearer  to  the  Catholic  Church  than  he 
thinks,  and  is  at  the  same  time  more  Catholic  than  many 
of  our  French  Catholics. 

"  If  God  had  not  showered  upon  him  His  grace,  his 
intelligence  could  not  have  risen  to  such  a  height,  in  his 
contemplations  of  the  Will  of  God,  his  heart  could  not  have 
breathed  forth  so  much  supernatural  love  for  the  well-being 
of  all  humanity,  nor  could  his  will  have  been  strong  enough 
to  raise  his  glorious  banner  with  so  full  a  determination 
to  carry  it  triumphant  through  all  the  world." 

Abroad  he  had  warm  friends  and  allies  in  Mgr.  Mermillod, 
the  Auxiliary  Bishop  of  Geneva,  and  in  the  Bishops  of  Rodez 
and  Mayence,  not  to  speak  of  Mgr.  Franchi  and  several 
Eastern  ecclesiastics  of  high  rank. 

Nevertheless,  it  was  not  by  any  suggestion  on  the  part 
of  his  Catholic  friends,  but  purely  of  his  own  initiative,  that 
he  decided  to  appeal  to  Pius  IX.  for  the  restoration  of  the 
Canon  Law,  of  whose  existence  he  had  but  just  learnt. 


234  DAVID  URQUHART 

The  Appeal  was  sent  to  Pius  IX.  in  the  first  days  of 
1869,  under  cover  of  a  Latin  letter,  of  which  the  following 
is  a  translation : 

"  On  this,  the  first  day  of  a  year  which  will  be  memorable 
in  the  eyes  of  generations  to  come,  I  approach  the  highest 
Court  of  human  power  and  lay  this  book  at  the  feet  of 
your  Holiness. 

"  My  purpose  in  writing  it,  and  my  object  in  offering  it, 
is  that  it  may  serve  to  bend  human  ends  to  serve  your  will. 

"  That  will,  so  far  as  I  understand  it,  is  that  the  Law  of 
Nations  and  the  laws  of  man  may  be  sanctified  and  pre- 
served; that  laws  despised  and  compacts  broken  may  be 
so  written  on  the  hearts  of  men  that  the  world  may  be  led 
back  to  peace  and  confidence. 

"  Holy  Father,  you  have  set  in  motion  a  means,  in  the 
Council  about  to  be  held,  whereby  a  voice  which  we  may 
regard  as  the  Voice  of  God  Himself  may  go  forth  from  the 
Assembly  of  the  Faithful  to  the  whole  world. 

"  In  the  name  of  those  who  stand  without,  I  declare  that 
we  will  listen  to  this  voice  instead  of  the  voice  of  Kings  or 
the  laws  which  we  accept  to-day,  if  it  will  show  us  a  way 
whereby  we  may  be  free  from  public  guilt. 

''  Power  is  two-edged  and  glory  is  vain;  there  is  nothing 
powerful  or  lasting  save  that  which  provides  a  remedy  for 
the  ills  and  errors  of  men. 

"  In  your  hands  lies  that  power.  Other  power  or  hope 
is  there  none. 

"  I  pray  you.  Holy  Father,  to  call  forth  the  lofty  under- 
standing which  is  an  everlasting  possession  of  the  Roman 
Church;  to  exercise  that  knowledge  known  of  old  as  the 
knowledge  of  things  human  and  divine  by  which  pagan 
Rome  was  greatly  known  and  revered. 

"  This,  too,  depends  on  your  Holiness'  power  and  will. 

"  By  your  royal  power,  by  your  ancient  title,  by  the 
memory  of  the  past,  by  the  very  language  which  you  speak, 
I  pray  your  Holiness  to  come  to  the  aid  of  an  unhappy 
world  which  can  neither  bear  nor  cure  the  ills  under  which 
it  labours. 

"  David  Urquhart."^ 

1  This  letter  in  Latin,  with  the  five  points  of  the  Appeal,  is  given 
on  p.  1309.  No.  3G5  of  the  Appendix  to  the  "  Acta  et  Decreta  SS. 
Con:  Vat:  "  under  the  following  heading: 

David  Urquhart,  protestans,  rationis  in  puperiore  docnmento  pro- 
positse  acer  propugnator,  dedicat  Summo  Pontifici  libium,  quern  in- 


THE  APPEAL  TO  THE  POPE  235 

In  appealing  to  the  Pope  Urquhart  appealed  to  the  whole 
Catholic  world. 

But  the  Appeal  is  much  more  than  an  Appeal.  It  is  a 
serious  indictment  of  modern  Governments ;  it  is  a  reasoned 
and  progressive  statement  of  the  harm  that  has  been  done 
to  the  world  by  the  quiet  setting  aside  of  Law  by  those  in 
power,  and  the  silent  submission  of  the  people  to  such 
disregard — ^a  submission  born  of  ignorance  and  indifference. 

It  shows  that  such  indifference  was  the  fault  of  those 
who,  having  received  the  Law  as  a  sacred  deposit,  had 
neglected,  through  ignorance,  cowardice,  or  self-love,  to 
proclaim  it.  Now,  however,  things  had  come  to  such  a 
pass,  so  blinded  were  men  by  self-love,  so  convinced  were 
they  that  falsehood  and  wrong  were  truth  and  justice  by 
the  false  use  of  words  such  as  "  civilisation,"  "  progress," 
"public  opinion,"  that  only  one  voice  could  reach  them, 
the  voice  of  the  Head  of  Christendom. 

Not  only  was  the  Pope  alone  able  to  speak  to  the  world, 
but  it  was  his  bounden  duty  to  do  it.  The  Head  of  a  mere 
Religious  Sect  might  hold  his  peace  and,  for  his  own  com- 
fort and  ease,  condone  the  crimes  of  the  civil  Government 
under  which  he  lived.  But  the  Pope  lived  under  no  Govern- 
ment. He  was  an  independent  sovereign;  moreover,  he 
was  the  Father  of  Christendom;  all  the  children  of  men 
were  his  children.  Should  war  break  out  he  must  condemn 
the  wrong  side,  he  must  show  where  Justice  lay,  or  how 
could  his  cliildren  know  their  duty  ? 

scripsit  Appel  d'un  Protestant  au  Pape  pour  le  ritdblissement  du 
droit  public  des  nations,  affirmatque  nullam  aliam,  prseterquam 
Ecclesia?  Catholicse,  reperiri  auctoritatein  quse  recto  codici  juris 
gentium  inter  homines  restituendo  par  esse  possit.  Ad  hoc  prss- 
clarum  munus  vocari  futurum  Concilium  cecumenicum.  Hujus 
silentium  violati  illius  juris  comprobatum  fore. 

This  description  may  be  translated  as  follows: 

David  Urquhart,  a  Protestant  and  a  fierce  protagonist  of  the  policy 
set  forth  in  the  accompanying  document,  dedicates  to  the  Supreme 
Pontiff  a  book  which  he  calls:  The  Appeal  of  a  Protestant  to  the  Pope 
for  the  Pestoration  of  the  Law  of  Nations.  He  declares  that  there  is 
no  other  authority  but  that  of  the  Catholic  Church,  which  can  restore 
to  man  the  true  code  of  the  Law  of  Nations. 

He  maintains  that  the  (Ecumenical  Council  is  called  to  this  noble 
task,  that  for  her  to  be  silent  would  be  to  condone  the  violations  of 
that  Law. 


236  DAVID  URQUHART 

The  Pope  had  proclaimed,  and  rightly  proclaimed,  that 
he  had  authority  over  "  the  consciences  not  only  of  men 
but  of  communities,  peoples,  and  their  sovereigns  " ;  but 
until  he  had  defined  the  Law  as  it  was  defined  in  the  past 
he  could  not  exert  that  authority.  The  Law  must  be  pro- 
claimed, and  must  be  applied  to  present  needs,  and  to  each 
case  as  it  arose.  To  that  end  there  was  need  of  a  School 
of  Public  Law  where  diplomatists  could  be  taught  Law 
and  its  applications,  not  only  to  war,  but  to  Congresses, 
to  Treaties,  and  to  Protocols,  and  where  priests  could  be 
trained  as  in  the  Mediaeval  Universities,  that  they  might 
teach  their  people. 

It  was  false  and  futile  to  say  that  the  Church  could  keep 
out  of  politics  and  ought  to  do  so.  She  could  only  do  so 
by  condoning  wrong.  Did  not  the  great  Popes  of  the  past 
exercise  authority  over  the  Rulers  of  the  world  ?  Did  not 
even  Alexander  VI.  interfere  to  try  and  prevent  injustice 
on  the  part  of  the  King  of  Portugal  ?  Did  Pius  VII.  keep 
out  of  politics  when  he  drew  upon  himself  the  vengeance  of 
Napoleon  by  refusing  to  subscribe  to  the  Berlin  and  Milan 
Decrees  ?  or  when  he  refused  to  have  anything  to  do  with 
the  Congress  of  Vienna  ?  Did  Gregory  XVI.  keep  out  of 
politics  when  he  protested  before  Europe  against  the  cruelties 
inflicted  on  Poland  by  a  Power  before  whom  they  all 
crouched,  and  against  whom  only  he  stood  upright  ? 

No  Catholic  could  keep  out  of  politics;  much  less  could 
the  Head  of  the  Catholic  Church.  If  the  Pope  did  not 
bring  the  world  under  the  dominion  of  Law,  the  world 
would  bring  him  under  that  of  force.  The  sole  hope  of  the 
world  for  moral  regeneration  lay  in  the  Pope.  Law  was 
dead;  Justice  was  dead;  and  Peace  and  Goodwill  had  fallen 
with  them  into  the  grave. 

"Pius  IX.,"  so  he  concludes  his  argument,  "combines 
qualifications  so  dissimilar  and  so  eminent  that  he  seems 
to  have  been  providentially  raised  up  for  the  need  of  the 
world,  being  at  once  an  Ecclesiastic  who  has  applied  his 
mind  to  analytical  exercises  and  a  Sovereign  who  is  one 
not  in  name  only,  as  are  the  other  Sovereigns  of  Europe, 
but  in  power  also.     Were  the  Catholic  Church  of  one  mind 


THE  APPEAL  TO  THE  POPE  237 

with  the  Pope  the  work  would  be  done,  or,  rather,  it  would 
not  require  to  be  done.  His  difficulties  are  with  his  own 
flock,  at  once  incapable  of  following  his  thought  and  com- 
prehending and  admiring  the  courage  displayed  on  so  many 
occasions  by  the  greatest  PontifE  who  has  ever  sat  on  the 
throne  of  St.  Peter." 

The  Appeal  was  sent  to  Pius  IX.  in  March,  1869,  under 
cover  of  a  brief  personal  appeal  that  the  restoration  of  the 
Canon  Law  might  be  included  in  the  work  of  the  forth- 
coming Council.  It  was  at  the  same  time  circulated  both 
amongst  Protestants  and  Catholics. 

It  received  a  very  varied  reception.  The  Bishop  of 
Rodez  referred  to  it  in  terms  of  the  highest  commendation 
in  his  Lenten  Pastoral;  Archbishop  Manning  expressed  his 
entire  concurrence  with  what  Urquhart  had  said,  but  dis- 
approved of  any  appeal  to  the  Pope,  "  save  by  the  accus- 
tomed channels."  It  is  not  too  much  to  say  that  Catholics 
generally  were  sympathetic.  Urquhart  himself  said  that 
even  when  they  did  not  approve  they  at  least  understood 
his  meaning.  In  almost  all  cases  where  they  showed  want 
of  sympathy  it  was  due  to  political  causes.  His  greatest 
foe  was  not  Protestantism— Protestants  were  for  the  most 
part  indifferent — but  Gallicanism. 

Urquhart  was  an  Ultramontane  of  the  Ultramontanes. 
He  was  convinced  that  it  was  the  Pope  he  wanted  and  no  one 
else,  and  he  used  to  the  full  the  opportunities  which  his 
position  outside  the  Church  gave  him  of  going  direct  to 
the  fountain  head. 

"  Si  j'eusse  ete  Catholique,"  he  writes,  "  au  lieu  d'avoir 
eu,  comme  vous  le  supposez,  un  champ  plus  libre,  j'aurais 
eu  la  bouche  fermee  avant,  pour  ainsi  dire,  de  I'avoir 
ouverte."  But  he  was  determined  that  his  mouth  should 
not  be  shut  until  at  least  he  had  said  his  say  to  the  Pope. 

By  the  unimpeded  attraction  of  his  mind  towards  reality 
he  saw  that  the  Pope  was  the  great  need  of  the  world,  both 
as  Temporal  Sovereign  and  as  Spiritual  Head.  As  the 
Sovereign  of  a  temporal  kingdom,  albeit  the  smallest  in 
Europe,  he  might  make  his  Court  the  home  of  pure  diplo- 
macy based  on  Law,  for  on  Law  alone  could  his  kingdom 


238  DAVID  URQUHART 

rest  amid  the  armed  forces  of  Europe.  Standing  there 
unmolested  among  them  it  would  be  an  example  of  the 
power  of  Law. 

If  the  Law  could  be  re-established  and  its  reign  once 
more  set  up,  the  Papacy  as  a  Temporal  Sovereignty  would 
stand  with  it;  if  not  it  must  go.  For  no  power  in  the  world 
could  exist  without  force  in  an  age  openly  lawless. 

The  Papal  Infallibility  was  a  fact  which  admitted  to  him 
of  no  argument.  It  followed  directly  upon  his  conviction 
that  it  is  in  the  power  of  man  to  be  right. 

"  If  truth  is  to  be  found  anywhere  in  the  world,"  he  said 
in  a  letter  on  the  subject,  "  it  can  only  be  found  in  a  com- 
munity which  has  the  power  of  not  falUng  into  error.  For 
a  Catholic  that  power  must  reside  somewhere,  for  that  is  the 
foundation  of  his  beUef.  And,  if  it  resides  in  a  community 
it  must  be  crystallised,  so  to  speak,  in  the  head  of  the  com- 
munity, or  where  is  his  authority  ?  Do  you  think  the 
InfalUbility  means  that  the  Pope  may  say  what  he  likes 
and  everyone  must  say  Amen  ?  That  would  be  the  only 
excuse  for  objecting  to  it.  Instead  of  calling  it  the  Dogma 
of  InfalUbility  it  ought  to  be  called  the  '  Obligation  of 
Denial'  The  Pope's  InfalUbiHty  means  that  he  is  bound 
to  contradict  a  novel  interpretation;  he  must  denounce  a 
heresy,  excommunicate  a  heretic,  displace  an  Ecclesiastic 
who  has  become  one,  and  at  once  preserve  his  authority  as 
Chief  and  the  unity  of  the  Faith  as  a  Religion." 

To  Urquhart  the  Pope  was  to  be  the  Infallible  Voice,  the 
Law-Giver  to  the  world,  the  Sovereign  of  a  State  supreme 
in  its  perfect  obedience  to  Law. 

Just  as  the  Pope  could  not  submit  to  any  voice  within 
the  Church,  so  he  could  submit  to  no  authority  in  the  world. 

"II  sent,"  said  Pere  Jullion,  writing  of  Urquhart  to  the 
Bishop  of  Malines,  "  que  le  Pape  est  pour  la  societe  humaine 
ce  que  le  soleil  est  pour  la  terre,  c'est-a-dire  le  flambeau 
de  la  verite.  II  sent  que  le  Pape  seul  doit  etre  pour  le 
monde  Tinterprete  de  la  loi  de  saintete  et  de  justice.  II 
sent  que  le  Pape  est  le  juge  supreme  qui  doit  prononcer, 
au  dernier  ressort,  sur  les  litiges  qui  peuvent  surgir  entre 
les  rois  et  les  rois,  entre  les  nations  et  leurs  souverains." 

It  is  obvious  that  such  a  temper  as  this  would  find  little 


THE  APPEAL  TO  THE  POPE  239 

favour  among  those  Catholics  who  were  anxious  to  pro- 
pitiate their  Governments,  already  restive  under  what  they, 
for  the  most  part,  considered  Pius  IX. 's  high-handed  pro- 
cedure in  calling  a  Council  without  consulting  Kings  and 
Cabinets. 

Above  all  was  this  the  case  with  the  French  clergy  of  the 
Galilean  school.  It  seemed  to  them  that  the  Pope  had 
done  his  best  to  quench  their  hopes  of  a  national  Church, 
not  so  much  by  calling  a  Council,  as  by  the  way  in  which 
he  had  done  it.  M.  Ollivier's  speech  in  the  Assembly  was 
distinctly  disquieting  to  them.  The  French  Government, 
he  indicated,  had  never  before  been  so  ignored  by  any  Pope 
in  summoning  a  Council.  Pius  IX.  must  not  therefore 
complain  if  Rome  had  to  put  up  with  the  consequences 
of  his  high-handed  action.  "  L'histoire  le  constatera  bien," 
he  said,  "  c'est  Rome  qui  la  premiere  jette  le  defi  aux 
societes  seculaires,  respectueuses  devant  elle.  C'est  Rome 
la  premiere  qui  les  agite,  les  provoque  et  les  appelle  a  la 
lutte.  C'est  Rome  qui  leur  dit  '  Je  me  place  en  dehors  de 
vous;  je  brise  de  mes  propres  mains  le  pacte  qui  nous  liait, 
le  contrat  qui  nous  unissait.'  " 

It  was  not  to  be  expected  that  the  Galileans  who  saw 
their  dearest  schemes  endangered  by  a  policy  which  could 
be  so  described,  however  unfairly,  should  subscribe  to  a 
document  which  placed  the  Pope  on  a  pedestal  above  all 
Governments,  and  bade  him  put  into  the  hands  of  the 
peoples  the  means  of  curbing  their  power. 

Hence  Urquhart  lost  the  support,  not  only  of  the  extreme 
Galileans,  but  also  of  Mgr.  Dupanloup  and  all  his  following. 
For  Dupanloup  was  a  keen  politician,  and,  in  spite  of  his 
subsequent  loyal  submission  to  the  Decrees  of  the  Council 
it  was  scarcely  to  be  expected  that  he  would  surrender  his 
political  ambitions  in  order  to  support  a  scheme  which  was 
after  all,  to  him,  but  of  secondary  importance. 

Still,  in  spite  of  hard  work  and  disappointment,  the  three 
years  immediately  preceding  the  General  Council  of  1870 
were  more  full  of  hope  and  encouragement  than  all 
Urquhart's  previous  life  had  been. 

He  found,  as  he  said,  that  Law  still  existed  in  the  Catholic 


240  DAVID  URQUHART 

Church,  though  it  might  be  hidden.  Catholics  understood 
him  at  once  when  he  spoke  of  it,  the  necessity  for  its  restora- 
tion, and  the  havoc  which  had  been  wrought  by  its  forsaking. 

There  were  some  also  to  whom  his  words  were  almost 
like  a  new  Gospel.  As  he  had  owed  the  friends  of  his  earlier 
life  to  his  exertions  for  the  redemption  of  England,  his 
efforts  against  the  injustice  and  despotism  of  the  Govern- 
ment, his  devoted  toil  amongst  the  working  men,  so  he 
now  drew  around  him  by  this  Appeal  to  the  Pope  a  circle 
equally  devoted  but  widely  different. 

He  was  now  a  citizen  of  the  world,  and  those  whom  he 
had  known  for  years  were  drawn  closer  to  him  by  a  new  tie. 
Such  was  Frederic  Le  Play.  They  had  known  each  other 
since  Urquhart  was  in  the  Diplomatic  Service  and  Le  Play 
a  young  mining  engineer  to  whom  an  accident  had  given 
leisure  to  reflect  on  the  social  miseries  of  his  country.  Their 
minds  had  journeyed  by  parallel  ways;  for  both  the  path 
of  knowledge  lay  through  the  East. 

"J'ai  lu,"  writes  Le  Play  in  1868,  "  avec  grand  plaisir 
I'article  intitule  '  Erroneousness  of  Modern  Ideas.'  II  est 
tres  vrai  que  tout  homme  qui  etudie  a  fond  le  regime  actuel 
de  la  feodalite  en  Orient  doit  arriver  vite  a  comprendre 
I'erreur  des  idees  modernes  sur  le  progres,  la  civilisation, 
la  democratic.  Nous  sommes,  I'un  et  I'autre,  arrives  au 
meme  resultat  en  etudiant  cette  meme  region.  .  .  .  Ainsi 
je  vous  comprend  a  demi  mot." 

M.  Le  Play,  like  Urquhart,  was  full  of  admiration  for  the 
Eastern  peoples,  and  for  their  social  organisation  built  on 
the  family. 

"II  y  vit,"  writes  his  biographer,  Edmond  Bouchie  de 
Belle,  "  I'existence  de  chaque  homme  assure  et  chaque 
homme  content  de  son  sort.  Surtout  nul  trace  de  cet 
antagonisme  de  classe  qui  empoisonnait  la  vie  des  nations 
avancees." 

It  was  in  the  East  that  both  these  truly  great  men  came 
upon  Law  as  the  bed-rock  of  social  existence.  Frederic 
Le  Play  found  it  in  social  relations  as  David  Urquhart 
had  found  it  underneath  the  hard,  rough  life  of  the  Mussul- 
man soldier. 


THE  APPEAL  TO  THE  POPE  241 

In  the  Decalogue  M.  Le  Play  found  the  simplest  as  well 
as  the  highest  expression  of  that  Law.  By  his  studies  in 
the  East  he  made  his  way  back  from  Saint-Simonism  to  the 
Catholic  Church  through  the  avenues  of  Law  and  Justice. 

By  the  same  way  Urquhart  had  come  to  the  throne  of 
St.  Peter  to  beg  for  the  re-establishment  of  Law  in  the 
world. 

Both  had  found  that  what  the  world  wanted  was  Law, 
but  Urquhart  had  gone  a  step  farther  than  M.  Le  Play. 
He  had  found  that  at  the  root  of  all  social  disaster  was  the 
want  of  Law  between  nations,  and  that  without  it  not  only 
was  municipal  Law  of  no  avail,  but  it  could  not  even  exist. 
Unobserved  Law,  he  said,  was  worse  than  no  Law.  It 
poisons  all  society  at  its  roots. 

It  was  from  Urquhart  that  M.  Le  Play  absorbed  the  idea 
of  International  Justice.  The  references  he  makes  to  it 
in  the  third  and  fourth  editions  of  the  Reforme  Sociale  were 
directly  due  to  Urquhart's  influence. 

"  Je  trouverai,"  he  writes,  "  une  occasion  prochaine  de 
propager  votre  idee  favorite  de  la  justice  Internationale. 
Mon  editeur  m'annonce  I'epuisement  prochain  de  la 
troisieme  edition  de  la  Reforme  Sociale.  Dans  la  quatrieme 
edition  je  me  propose  d'insister  sur  I'idee  de  justice;  de 
citer  en  regard  de  ce  nouveau  paragraph  les  passages  de  vos 
ecrits  que  vous  me  signalerez  comme  resumant  votre 
doctrine  sur  le  moindre  volume." 

He  had  a  great  admiration  for  the  matter  and  form  of 
the  DiploTnatic  Review. 

"  I  am  ill,"  he  says  in  one  of  his  letters,  "  but  that  illness 
has  given  me  compulsory  leisure. 

"  I  have  profited  by  it  to  read  your  pamphlet  on  the 
Council,  and  the  French  article  in  the  last  number  of  the 
Diplomatic  Review. 

''  I  must  make  an  effort  to  express  to  you  the  extreme 
pleasure  which  I  have  received  from  the  perusal  of  both 
these  works. 

"  They  have  aroused  in  me,  for  the  hundredth  time,  the 
desire  of  bringing  out  a  weekly  organ  whose  aim  shall  be 
to  combat  the  false  ideas  which  are  disintegrating  Western 
Society. 

16 


242  DAVID  URQUHART 

"  Your  ideas  would  take  the  first  place  in  this  Review, 
together  with  those  which  would  tend  to  re-establish  order 
in  the  fundamental  elements  of  private  life. 

"  You  help  me  to  understand  how  it  is  that  the  grass 
grows  to-day  over  the  places  which  were  Babylon,  Nineveh. 
Carthage,  and  many  other  cities  known  to  fame." 

M.  Le  Play  rejoiced  over  the  General  Council.  It  would 
be  a  great  thing  for  the  world  if  the  age  of  Councils  were 
to  begin  again.  But  he  was  not  hopeful  as  to  Urquhart's 
success  in  bringing  before  the  world  ideas  whose  greatness 
and  importance  he  himself  recognized.  For  Urquhart  was 
a  bad  propagandist.  He  would  not  put  himself  in  the  place 
of  the  ignorant  and  stupid. 

"  Voici,"  said  M.  Le  Play,  "  trente  ans  que  vous  voyez 
et  annoncez  la  verite  et  votre  nom  reste  inconnu,  en  dehors 
d'un  petit  nombre  d'hommes  eminents  qui  vous  ont  com- 
pris.  .  .  ." 

Why  was  this  ?     Le  Play  himself  answers  the  question. 

"  Je  m'explique  I'ignorance  oil  Ton  reste  touchant  vos 
excellentes  idees  par  le  fait  que  vous  n'avez  pas  pris  la 
peine  immense  pour  les  rendre  intelligibles  a  un  public 
intellectuellement  perverti.  J'ose  vous  conseiller  ce  travail 
avant  toute  entreprise  de  propagande  active." 

He  goes  on  to  point  out  the  infinite  labour  he  had  himself 
bestowed  upon  the  successive  editions  of  the  Eeforftie 
Sociale  in  order  that  they  might  commend  themselves  to 
a  public  for  whom  "  il  faut  presque  creer  le  langage,  car 
le  public  reste  entierement  etrange  aux  choses  et  n'est 
nullement  prepare  a  les  comprendre." 

M.  Le  Play  was  one  of  the  few  people  whose  criticisms 
Urquhart  bore  with  patience.  He  not  only  took  exception 
to  the  want  of  patience  his  English  friend  took  in  trying 
to  commend  his  ideas  to  the  public,  he  fell  upon  his  hand- 
writing. "  Vos  idees,"  he  said,  "  sont  mes  delices  mais 
votre  ecriture  est  mon  desespoir." 

He  did  not  hesitate  to  animadvert  on  the  extreme  in- 
accuracy which  often  made  it  impossible  to  verify  a  quota- 
tion or  an  historical  fact  from  any  references  which  he  gave 
in  his  writings. 


THE  APPEAL  TO  THE  POPE  243 

"  Mon  cher  ami,"  he  writes,  "  Notre  celebre  Cardinal  de 
Retz,  voulant  un  jour  dominer  une  emeute  populaire,  an 
temps  de  la  Fronde,  inventa  un  passage  de  Ciceron  a  I'appui 
de  sa  politique,  et  la  fit  accepter  par  ses  auditeurs,  qui 
chercherent  ensuite  vainement  sa  sentence. 

"  Je  defends  en  ce  moment  vos  idees  sur  la  Turquie  en 
presence  d'Armeniens  de  distinction;  et  je  leur  cite  1' ad- 
mirable precepte  du  Koran,  cite  par  vous  a  la  page  57  de 
la  traduction  du  Portfolio  qui  m'a  ete  envoyee  recemment. 

"  Mes  Armeniens  m'ont  ri  au  nez,  en  m'assurant  que 
vous  aviez  suivi  I'exemple  de  notre  Cardinal  et  que  ledit 
texte  etait  de  votre  invention. 

"  Je  me  suis  mis  alors  a  lire  une  traduction  estimee  du 
Koran,  celle  de  Kasimirski,  et  je  n'ai  point  trouve  ledit 
texte.  N'ayant  pas  le  temps  de  relire  cet  ouvrage  avec 
plus  d' attention,  je  vous  serais  oblige  de  me  signaler  le 
passage  en  question,  par  le  chapitre  et  le  verset." 

Urquhart's  attitude  not  only  to  M.  Le  Play  but  to  several 
of  his  French  friends,  was  his  most  complete  vindication 
against  the  charges  of  those  who  maintained  that  Urquhart 
could  not  breathe  in  an  atmosphere  of  criticism.  He  could 
not,  it  is  true,  bear  the  criticism  of  ignorance  on  subjects 
on  the  study  of  which  he  had  spent  the  strength  and  work 
of  a  lifetime,  and  it  was  not  an  easy  thing  to  find  men 
whose  knowledge  was  equal  to  his  own. 

But  on  the  rare  occasions  when  he  came  across  superior 
knowledge  he  was  willing  to  take  the  learner's  place  even 
on  his  own  subjects.  At  the  Pope's  feet  he  always  sat  in 
admiration  for  his  moral  character,  respect  for  his  know- 
ledge, and  reverence  for  his  position. 

In  his  relations  with  many  Roman  ecclesiastics  he  had 
some  faint  foreshado wings  of  the  fulfilment  of  a  dream  which, 
as  he  told  his  wife,  had  recurred  again  and  again.  He 
seemed,  he  said,  to  be  in  the  company  of  people  against 
whose  intelligence  and  knowledge  he  could  make  no  head- 
way; who  treated  him  in  argument  as  he  was  accustomed 
to  treat  those  who  had  the  temerity  to  come  to  him  pre- 
pared to  show  him  his  mistakes.  "  They  take  my  words," 
he  would  say,  "  and  show  fallacies  in  them  all,  and  in  the 
end  they  oblige  me  to  own  myself  utterly  and  entirely 
wrong." 


244  DAVID  URQUHART 

To  his  reverence  for  the  Pope  Urquhart  added  sympathy 
for  his  loneliness.  He  felt  that  few,  if  any,  understood  the 
deep  passion  in  his  heart  for  Justice;  he  knew  that  he  him- 
self did,  for  it  was  the  passion  of  his  own  heart.  After  his 
first  audience  he  felt  that  he  had  a  friend  in  the  Holy 
Father.  "  It  makes  my  heart  feel  warm,"  he  said,  "  when 
after  a  long  discussion  with  some  Cardinals  or  officials, 
who  seem  drowned  in  trivialities,  I  let  my  thoughts  go  back 
to  the  Vatican  and  think  he  at  least  is  on  my  side.  What 
else  matters  ?" 

Perhaps  the  little  scene  which  Mrs.  Urquhart  describes 
in  her  diary  when  first  he  learnt  that  the  Vo^e  had  received 
and  approved  of  his  Appeal  was  one  of  the  happiest  memories 
of  his  life. 

"We  went  in  the  evening,"  she  says,  "to  the  Bishop, 
Mgr.  Mermillod,^  and  he  told  us  the  news  from  Rome.  He 
took  us  apart  into  his  study,  and  said,  '  I  have  just  come 
back  from  Lucerne,  from  the  Nuncio,  and  I  have  a  message 
for  you.  All  is  accepted.  He  has  sent  on  all  your  letters 
to  Rome  and  expects  very  soon  to  have  a  written  answer 
for  you.'  The  expression  of  countenance  and  eager  manner 
of  the  Bishop  said  even  more  than  his  words — like  those 
of  a  man  who  has  much  important  intelligence  to  impart." 

In  spite  of  such  encouragement,  however,  the  goal  was 
not  yet  won.  Though  eminent  Roman  ecclesiastics  or 
even  the  Pope  himself  might  sympathise  whole-heartedly 
with  Urquhart's  ideas,  nothing  could  be  done,  the  re- 
establishment  of  Public  Law  could  not  even  be  considered 
by  the  Council,  unless  a  proposal  for  such  a  consideration 
were  to  be  laid  before  it  by  a  definite  body  of  Catholic 
opinion. 

1  Mgr.  IMermillod  was  one  of  Urqnliart's  warmest  sympathisers. 
In  1864  lie  was  appointed  Auxiliary  Bishop  of  Geneva,  with  the  title 
of  Bishop  of  Hebron,  and  in  1873  Vicar  Apostolic  of  Geneva.  The 
new  Apostolic  Vicarate  was  not  acknowledged  either  by  the  States 
Council  of  Geneva,  or  by  the  Swiss  Federal  Council,  and  Mermillod 
was  banished  from  Switzerland.  The  decree  of  expulsion  was,  how- 
ever, rescinded  when,  on  the  death  of  the  Bishop  of  Lausanne,  Mer- 
millod became  Bishop  of  Lausanne  and  Geneva,  and  the  Apostolic 
Vicarate  fell  into  abeyance.  In  ISflO,  he  was  ral-ied  to  the  Cardinalate 
and  summoned  to  Rome  by  Leo  XIII. 


THE  APPEAL  TO  THE  POPE  245 

Neither  Pope  nor  Council  could  originate.  Here  was  the 
great  crux.  Who  was  to  present  that  article  as  a  point, 
indeed  Urquhart  thought  it  the  chief  point,  for  the  con- 
sideration and  decision  of  the  Council  ? 

As  he  looked  round  upon  the  ecclesiastics  of  all  European 
countries  he  saw  no  hope  that  any  of  them  would  take  so 
definite  a  line.  There  were  underlying  diplomatic  reasons 
why  they  should  all  sit  on  a  hedge. 

Archbishop  Manning  would  fear  to  offend  Mr.  Gladstone 
with  whom  he  was  known  to  be  friendly,  and  the  English 
bishops  would  follow  his  lead. 

The  position  in  France  was  extremely  critical,  besides 
which,  the  Church,  as  we  have  seen,  was  riddled  with 
Gallicanism,  and  the  great  aim  of  the  Galilean  bishops  was 
to  go  as  far  as  possible  with  their  Government. 

The  Prussian  Government  would  not  be  likely  to  favour 
any  strong  attempt  to  proclaim  a  Law  which  her  great  hope 
was  to  be  able  to  hide  in  forgetf ulness ;  nor  the  Austrian 
to  do  anything  to  offend  Russia,  the  fear  of  whom  was  always 
before  her  eyes. 

Urquhart  looked  to  the  East  for  help.  If  the  bishops 
of  the  East  would,  with  the  full  concurrence  of  the 
Ottoman  Government,  present  such  an  article  for  the 
consideration  of  the  Council  the  chief  difficulty  was 
removed. 

As  far  back  as  1850  Urquhart  had  had  intimate  dealings 
with  the  Armenian  Catholic  Nation,  with  its  two  Patri- 
archates of  Mount  Lebanon  and  Constantinople.  These 
dealings,  as  well  as  his  long-continued  friendship  with  the 
Ottoman  Government,  stood  him  now  in  good  stead.  He 
would  use  both  Catholics  and  Mussulmans  to  help  in  the 
great  crusade  for  Law  and  Justice  in  which,  all  unknown 
to  one  another,  they  had  often  been  united. 

It  as  deeply  concerned  the  Ottoman  as  it  did  the  Papal 
Government  that  Law  should  once  more  be  observed  by 
the  European  Powers,  since  all  the  disasters  which  had  of 
late  years  befallen  both  were  the  direct  result  of  its  non- 
observance.  It  was  the  part  of  both  to  speak  out  boldly  of 
the  dangers  which  would  result  from  a  continuance  of  its 


248  DAVID  URQUHART 

non-observance,  and  to  point  out  from  which  direction 
those  dangers  would  come. 

Neither  need  apprehend  any  harm  from  a  plain  speaking 
of  which  all  the  other  Governments  were  afraid,  since  on 
them  had  already  fallen  all  the  evil  which  could  befall  them. 

This  point  of  view  Urquhart  expressed  in  a  letter  to  the 
Papal  Nuncio  as  well  as  to  Fuad  Pasha,  the  Grand  Vizier. 
To  Fuad  Pasha  he  said : 

"  I  send  you  a  little  leaflet,  the  (Euvre  Apostolique,  on 
the  action  which  we  hope  the  (Ecumenical  Council  will 
take  with  regard  to  illegal  and  unjust  wars,  and  to  acts  of 
war  such  as  those  of  Garibaldi  and  the  armed  pirates  who 
have  infested  Bulgaria  and  Candia.  I  hope  that  your 
Highness  will  think  well  to  support  this  undertaking  either 
by  recommending  it  to  the  Catholic  bishops  with  whom 
you  have  occasion  to  come  into  contact,  or  even  by  a  com- 
munication on  your  own  part  to  the  Holy  See  itself." 

Urquhart  hoped  great  things  from  Fuad  Pasha,  who  had 
an  interview  with  the  Pope  while  he  was  in  Italy  in  1868. 
The  Pope,  according  to  the  Pall  Mall  Gazette,  received  the 
Grand  Vizier  with  "  great  cordiality,"  described  the  Sultan 
as  his  meilleur  ami  among  the  Sovereigns  of  Europe,  and 
spoke  gratefully  of  the  just  treatment  which  his  children 
received  under  the  Ottoman  rule.  When  Fuad  Pasha 
expressed  his  regret  that  the  Sultan  on  his  late  tour  through 
Europe  had  found  himself  unable  to  visit  Rome,  the  Pope 
replied:  "  Who  knows  but  that  I  may  go  and  see  him  in 
Constantinople  ?  You  are  not  ignorant  that  Christ  has 
given  me  all  the  earth.  My  Empire  extends  far  beyond 
the  Dardanelles,  but  unlike  that  of  a  neighbouring  Monarch 
offers  no  danger  to  your  Master."  He  laughingly  compared 
his  own  position  menaced  by  Piedmont  to  that  of  the  Sultan 
menaced  by  Russia,  and  added,  "  At  least  your  Sovereign 
believes  in  his  prophet,  but  the  other  Governments  of  our 
own  day  scarcely  believe  in  God." 

Fuad  Pasha,  to  Urquhart's  despair,  died  shortly  after 
his  audience,  and  the  hopes  which  had  been  placed  in  his 
knowledge  and  sympathy  were  not  realised. 

He  redoubled  his  own  efforts  to  promote  a  complete 
understanding  between  East  and  West.  "  If  this  reaches 
you  at  Naples,"  he  wrote  to  Rustem  B  ey,  "  and  you  return 


THE  APPEAL  TO  THE  POPE  247 

by  Rome,  pray  see  yourself  the  Bishop  of  Orleans  and  rouse 
him  up  by  a  few  indignant  and  energetic  words.  He  is  a 
man  of  such  great  capacity  that  you  can  reprove  him  and 
reproach  him  with  profit,  and  he  is  so  surrounded  and 
drowned  in  persons  and  personalities  that  he  requires 
rousing." 

To  the  Sultan  he  wrote  himself  as  follows : 

"  His  Holiness  the  Pope  has  convoked  an  Assembly  of 
all  the  prominent  Ecclesiastics  of  the  Church  of  Rome  to 
try  to  discover  some  means  of  arresting  the  impending  ruin 
of  European  Society.  This  means  can  only  be  the  Restora- 
tion of  Law,  for  Society  is  menaced  with  ruin  only  because 
Governments  and  people  meddle  in  each  other's  affairs, 
carry  disorder  into  the  dominions  of  their  neighbours,  or 
seize  their  territories.  Since  such  crimes  have  been  habitual 
amongst  Christians  the  nations  are  obliged  to  be  always 
prepared  either  for  attack  or  defence.  Taxes  are  an  over- 
whelming burden  and  the  disorder  of  external  affairs  has 
its  counterpart  in  the  heart  and  intelligence  of  men.  It 
is  this  state  of  affairs  that  the  Pope  deplores  and  to  which 
he  would  put  an  end.  But  he  cannot  do  it  without  the 
help  and  co-operation  of  Your  Majesty. 

"  The  promulgation  and  restatement  of  Public  Law  as 
a  duty  and  religious  obligation  is  the  only  measure  which 
will  correspond  with  this  pronouncement  of  the  Holy  Father, 
as  it  is  the  only  possible  remedy  to  the  disorders  to  which 
he  would  put  an  end.  The  bishops  in  Christian  countries 
dare  not  propose  that  such  an  article  be  added  to  the  work 
of  the  Council,  dependent  as  they  are  on  their  Governments. 
Bishops,  however,  living  under  Your  Majesty's  sceptre  are 
independent  of  the  secular  power,  and  this  power  being 
Mussulman,  itself  recognises  the  obligation  which  it  is  the 
object  of  the  Pope  to  introduce  amongst  Christians.  The 
bishops  of  the  Ottoman  Empire  can  therefore  propose  such 
an  article,  which  the  Christian  bishops  dare  not  reject, 
while  some  of  them  will  receive  it  with  joy.  .  .  .  But  to 
give  heart  to  the  bishops  of  the  East  to  risk  the  disfavour, 
and  to  incur  the  blame  of  their  comrades  of  the  West,  it 
would  be  well  that  a  word  of  encouragement  should  fall 
from  the  lips  of  Your  Majesty.  .  .  ." 

This  diplomatic  letter  succeeded. 

The  new  Grand  Vizier,  Ali  Pasha,  was  not  as  favourable 
to  the  Council  as  his  predecessor  had  been,  but  no  obstacle 


248  DAVID  URQUHART 

was  placed  in  the  way  of  the  attendance  of  the  Eastern 
bishops,  and  they  were  distinctly  encouraged  to  support 
Urquhart's  plan. 

But  Urquhart  did  not  confine  his  attentions  to  the  Otto- 
man Government.  He  proposed  to  the  Nuncio  and  to 
Mgr.  Mermillod  that  an  Address  should  be  presented  to 
the  Eastern  bishops  suggesting  that  they  should  draw  up 
a  Postulatum  for  the  Council.  The  plan  was  approved, 
and  both  the  Nuncio  and  Mgr.  Mermillod  agreed  in  en- 
trusting him  with  the  task  of  drawing  up  the  Address  and 
indicating  the  lines  of  the  Postulatum. 

It  was  from  the  Armenian  Synod  that  Urquhart  desired 
the  suggestion  should  emanate,  without  which  the  Council 
could  not  act.  The  Armenians  of  Constantinople  and 
Mount  Lebanon  were  now  united  under  one  Head,  Mgr. 
Hassoun,^  Patriarch  of  Constantinople,  and  to  the  Armenian 
bishops  assembled  in  Synod  Urquhart  proposed  to  send 
a  Mission.  The  difficulty  was  to  find  a  person  qualified  to 
undertake  such  a  Mission.  He  must  be  a  Catholic,  he  must 
understand  the  East,  he  must  be  as  enthusiastic  as  Urquhart 
about  the  restoration  of  Law.  Lord  Denbigh,  one  of  those 
proposed,  fulfilled  one,  if  not  two,  of  these  requirements; 
Lord  Stanley  might  have  accompanied  him,  but  the  death 
of  his  father  and  the  business  connected  Avith  his  taking  over 
the  estates  prevented  it. 

Then  Robert  Monteith  was  proposed  but  held  back, 
feeling  his  want  of  intimate  knowledge  of  the  East  a  draw- 
back. When  at  last  it  was  settled  that  Baron  Schroeder, 
who  had  spent  many  years  in  Turkey,  should  accompany 
him,  the  Baron  unfortunately  paid  a  visit  to  Mr.  U^rquhart 
at  the  chalet,  and  was  so  alarmed  by  the  overwhelming 
nature  of  Urquhart's  discourse  on  the  first  evening  of  his 
arrival  that  he  fled  early  in  the  morning,  apparently  fearing 
lest  he  should  be  compelled  by  force  to  so  formidable  an 
undertaking. 

In  the  end  Robert  Monteith  went  alone,  accompanied 
only  by  the  longings  and  prayers  of  the  little  company 
which  saw  him  off  from  the  chalet,  on  the  "roof  of  the 
world." 

^  See  Vernier.     Tlisloire  da  Palriavcliat  Armenlen  Calkdiqve. 


THE  APPEAL  TO  THE  POPE  249 

Urquhart's  description  to  Monteith's  wife  of  his  going 
reads  like  a  story  of  the  departure  of  a  knight  on  some  high 
quest  of  old. 

"  The  evening  of  our  arrival,"  he  says,  "  the  Bishop  was 
entirely  occupied,  and  wrote  to  ask  me  to  bring  Mr.  Monteith 
to  the  Eveche  at  10  o'clock  next  morning.  I,  thinking 
that  my  presence  might  occasion  some  restraint,  went  in 
to  Pere  Collet  to  wait  whilst  he  went  up.  Presently  the 
Bishop  came  down  for  me,  and  said,  '  You  must  be  present.' 

"  He  then — and  his  whole  look  and  bearing  was,  as  it  were, 
transformed — said  to  him :  '  You  go  to  the  bishops  of  the 
East  accredited  by  us,  the  bishops  of  the  West,  to  show 
them  how  a  common  centre  of  action  can  be  found  in  the 
CathoUc  Church  for  the  protection  of  the  world  by  the 
Restoration  of  Justice  against,  at  the  same  time,  its  own 
decay  and  the  operations  of  the  enemy.'  After  some  words 
from  me^  he  continued:  'As  you  are  going  from  us  and 
from  Protestants  of  a  lowly  order  a  providential  union  has 
been  brought  about.'  Your  husband  then  knelt  down,  and, 
laying  his  hand  upon  him,  the  Bishop  said :  '  I  give  you  a 
special  blessing  for  God's  work  on  which  you  are  going.'  " 

The  Mission  thus  inaugurated  proved  successful  even 
beyond  the  hopes  of  its  inaugurators.  The  Armenian 
bishops  assembled  in  Synod  gave  a  reception  overwhelming 
in  its  enthusiasm  to  the  delegate,  who  was  the  more  touched 
by  it  because  he  knew  the  intensity  of  Eastern  reserve. 
They  not  only  drew  up  a  Petition  to  the  Council,  but  a 
Vote  of  the  Synod  for  the  Restoration  of  the  Law  of  Nations 
signed  by  all  those  present.  This  they  forwarded  to  the 
Council  by  the  Patriarch's  Vicar-General,  Mgr.  Azarian. 

The  great  idea  had  materiahsed  at  last.  Here  was  some- 
thing which  the  Council  could  not  refuse  to  consider.  When 
Monteith's  telegram  containing  the  joyful  news  reached  the 
"roof  of  the  world"  Mrs.  Urquhart  wrote  in  her  diary: 
"  Bless  the  Lord,  oh  my  soul,  and  all  that  is  within  me 
bless  His  Holy  Name." 

At  once  David  Urquhart  and  his  wife  made  preparations 
to  go  to  Rome  for  the  Council.  Robert  Monteith  lent  them 
his  house,  the  "Tempietto,"  and  there  they  established 
themselves  in  November,  1869. 

1  Urquliiut  said:  "  He  goes  from  you  and  lie  is  the  representative 
of  a  large  body  of  English  working  men." 


CHAPTER  XIV 

THE  VATICAN  COUNCIL 

"  Princes  in  all  lands." 

Psalm  xlv.     (Prayer  Book  Version.) 

It  was  as  no  stranger  amongst  strangers  that  Urquhart 
found  himself  in  Rome  at  the  most  unique  event  in  the 
history  of  his  time— the  opening  of  the  Vatican  Council  on 
the  Feast  of  the  Immaculate  Conception. ^ 

Rome  was  full  of  friends  who  were  prepared  to  give  him 
vigorous  and  generous  support ;  and  in  spite  of  the  intrigues 
of  his  enemies,  in  spite  of  his  own  refusal  to  make  the  very 
slightest  inclination  in  the  House  of  Rimmon,  in  spite  of 
his  outspokenness  in  season  and  out  of  season,  he  lost 
scarcely  anyone  to  his  cause  and  he  gained  many. 

It  was  not  without  extreme  misgivings  that  some  of  his 
best  friends  had  heard  of  his  projected  visit.  Lord  Denbigh 
and  Mr.  Monteith,  with  all  their  affectionate  devotion  to  him, 
could  not  with  equanimity  imagine  him  riding  a-tilt  against 
Catholic  deliberation  and  Italian  prejudice.  Both  wrote 
urgent  letters  to  Mrs.  Urquhart  marked  "  Strictly  private," 
begging  her  to  use  all  her  influence  to  induce  in  her  husband 
the  "  prudence  and  calmness  "  so  essentially  alien  to  his 
temperament  and  methods  of  work.  But  their  prognostica- 
tions of  disaster  were  unfulfilled.  After  all,  Urquhart  was 
a  man  of  the  world,  and  a  diplomatist  by  training,  and  he 
probably  saw  for  himself  that  the  volcanic  methods  which 
had  been  necessary,  in  his  eyes,  to  arouse  his  apathetic 
fellow-countrymen  to  action,  would  not  only  be  unnecessary 
but  wholly  unsuitable  in  dealing  with  the  officials  of  the 
Court  of  the  Vatican,  men  with  minds  keen  and  sensitive 
as  his  own,  for  all  their  caution  and  deliberation.  Urquhart 
in  Rome,  without  sacrificing  one  of  his  principles,  allowed 

1  December  8,  1869. 
250 


THE  VATICAN  COUNCIL  251 

his  natural  charm  of  manner  to  assert  itself  in  a  way  that 
won  him  many  friends. 

His  propaganda  of  Turkish  baths  took  the  agreeable  form 
of  throwing  open  his  own  to  any  rheumatic  sufferer  whom 
the  keen  winds  of  Rome  had  shrewdly  touched.  French 
and  Italian  dignitaries  forgot  to  censure  the  rudeness  of 
"  the  mad  Englishman  "  who  refused  to  clasp  the  hands 
they  affably  extended  to  him  when,  with  Eastern  grace  and 
dignity,  he  kissed  them  instead. 

Urquhart  was,  moreover,  for  the  first  time  in  his  life, 
thrown  into  the  midst  of  a  diplomatic  society  which  he 
could  respect.  Whatever  may  be  said,  and  said  with  truth, 
of  the  wheels  within  wheels  which  were  at  work  in  the  huge 
Conciliar  machine;  whatever  may  be  said  of  conflicting 
interests  and  subterranean  plans,  of  plots  and  counterplots 
woven  by  Governments,  who  used  often  unsuspecting 
bishops  as  their  cats'  paws,  there  is  no  doubt  that  the 
diplomatic  atmosphere  of  Rome  was  the  only  one  in  Europe 
in  which  a  man  of  Urquhart's  sense — an  exaggerated  sense  it 
would  seem  to  many— of  honour  and  honesty  could  breathe. 

He  could  be  himself.  He  was  not  for  ever  on  the  defensive 
against  the  spirit  of  the  age.  He  could  expand  and  glow. 
His  great  fiery  soul  could  radiate  light  and  heat  around 
him  when  the  chilling  stream  of  criticism  and  contempt  was 
not  constantly  playing  upon  it. 

Rome,  whether  it  agreed  with  him  or  not,  understood 
him.  For  the  first  time  in  his  life  he  found  himself  in  a 
society  whose  native  atmosphere  was  his  own,  that  of  the 
mountain  heights  of  honour  and  justice,  of  true  charity,  and 
high  and  noble  statecraft. 

There  is  no  part  of  Urquhart's  life  which  is  so  pleasant  to 
dwell  upon  as  the  story  of  his  life  in  Rome.  All  his  ap- 
parently egotistical  pride  and  self-assertion  dropped  away. 
Meek  he  could  never  be,  but  he  was  humble  as  a  gentleman 
among  his  like.  He  never  let  slip  without  criticism  a  loose  or 
vague  or  mistaken  word,  but  he  called  attention  to  it  as  an 
equal,  not  as  a  schoolmaster.  He  showed  the  deep  reverence 
as  well  as  the  lofty  contempt  of  which  he  was  capable. 

When  her  husband's  own  character  and  manner  would 


252  DAVID  URQUHART 

have  barred  the  way  to  success,  Mrs.  Urquhart  was  always 
at  his  side  to  open  it  for  him.  Always  gentle,  always 
courteous,  though  as  firm  as  he  in  matters  of  principle,  she 
moved  among  the  ecclesiastics  of  East  and  West  who 
assembled  at  their  house  in  the  Via  Sistina,  obviously 
impressing  her  guests  not  less  by  her  fine  intelligence  than 
by  her  reverent  humility,  in  the  presence  of  those  whom  she 
counted  her  superiors.  Even  at  great  meetings  of  bishops, 
when  "  ladies  and  laymen  were  not  admitted,"  her  presence 
as  well  as  that  of  her  husband's  was  taken  for  granted. 
Many  of  those  whom  she  now  met  for  the  first  time  were 
prepared  to  acknowledge  their  indebtedness  to  her.  She 
had  long  acted  as  her  husband's  secretary,  and  had  thus 
had  no  insignificant  share  in  rendering  intercourse  with  him 
less  of  a  strain  than  it  might  have  been,  if  not  to  the  brain 
and  temper,  at  least  to  the  eyes.  "  Mes  compliments  a 
votre  secretaire,"  had  been  the  message  sent  to  her  by 
many  an  overworked  bishop  whom  David  Urquhart's 
epistles,  brilliant  indeed,  but  maddening  in  their  illegibility, 
must  have  driven  to  desperation.  What  her  handwriting 
was  in  his  letters  her  influence  was  in  the  work  of  his  life, 
something  which  made  it  possible  for  others  to  appreciate 
and,  whether  they  sympathised  or  not,  at  least  to  see  it 
presented  in  its  best  and  most  reasonable  aspect.  Never 
was  that  influence  more  untiringly  exerted  than  in  Rome, 
or  with  a  more  beneficent  effect.  And  her  work  brought 
its  own  reward,  for  through  her  patience  and  charity  under 
all  that  was  repellent,  petty,  and  apparently  worldly  and 
self-seeking,  in  the  great  men  as  well  as  the  mean  men, 
who  took  part  in  that  great  assemblage,  she  was  enabled 
to  keep  her  eyes  fixed  on  the  power,  the  virtue,  the  truth 
which  were  the  real  motive  forces  in  the  Council  and  in  the 
men  who  made  it  up. 

Though  she  did  not  become  a  Catholic  in  effect  till  seven 
years  later,  Mrs.  Urquhart  was  one  in  spirit  before  she  and 
her  husband  turned  their  backs  on  the  Eternal  City  in  May, 
1870.  Therefore,  though,  in  her  humility,  she  counted 
herself  of  less  importance  in  this  undertaking  than  in  many 
another  in  which  she  had  stood  by  her  husband's  side,  it 


THE  VATICAN  COUNCIL  253 

was  probably  the  growing  attraction  of  her  own  mind  which, 
unconsciously  both  to  themselves  and  to  her,  drew  many 
of  the  Catholic  ecclesiastics  to  sympathetic  consideration 
of  the  great  cause. 

The  history  of  David  Urquhart's  connection  with  the 
Vatican  Council  is  a  page  not  only  of  unwritten  but  almost 
of  secret  history. 

The  materials  for  it,  with  the  exception  of  the  few  but 
important  documents  contained  in  the  Acta  et  Decreta  SS. 
Concilii  Vaticani,  are  only  to  be  found  in  his  own  and  his 
friends'  letters.  Official  history  and  contemporary  memoirs 
bestow,  if  they  notice  him  at  all,  but  a  cursory  glance  on 
Urquhart  and  his  connection  with  the  Council. 

His  theory  that  Russia  and  Germany  were  mancBUvring 
delays  in  order  to  prevent  any  pronouncement  by  the  Holy 
See  on  the  Law  of  Nations  is  unsupported  by  contemporary 
evidence.  The  fierce  emotions  which  raged  round  the 
dogma  of  Infallibility  and  the  bitter  opposition  it  evoked, 
are  enough  in  the  eyes  of  most  people  to  account  for  any 
effort  being  made  to  delay  its  promulgation. 

On  the  other  hand,  in  Urquhart's  mind,  the  Papal  Infalli- 
bility and  the  declaration  before  the  world  of  the  Canon 
Law  were  indissolubly  united.  It  is  worth  noting  that  all 
his  supporters  were  not  only  supporters  of  the  dogma  of 
Infallibility,  but  supporters  of  it  in  its  widest  sense;  at  the 
same  time  those  who  opposed  the  dogma  were  also  enemies 
to  his  cause.i 

Moreover,  David  Urquhart  knew  the  intimate  connection 
between  East  and  West  as  no  one  else  in  Rome  knew  it. 
To  him  Russia's  struggle  for  Constantinople,  with  all  that 
it  signified,  was  the  key  to  European  politics.  Both  Russia 
and  Turkey  in  different  senses  were  keenly  interested  in  the 
proceedings  of  the  Vatican  Council.  Russia  dreaded  all 
signs  of   a  rapprochement  between  Rome  and  the  East,  a 

1-  The  only  two  Catholic  priests  who  seriously  opposed  Urquhart'a 
proxDosal  for  the  re-establishment  of  the  Law  of  Nations,  were  Pere 
Hyacinth,  of  Old-Catholic  fame,  and  Father  Suffield,  the  Dominican, 
who  afterwards  left  the  Catholic  Church  to  become  a  Unitarian. 

It  was  in  answer  to  Father  Suflield  that  Urquhart  wrote  his  pam- 
phlet: Effect  on  the  World  of  the  Restoration  of  the  Canon  Law:  A 
Vindicalion  of  the  Catholic  Chuuh  ajainst  a  Priest. 


254  DAVID  URQUHART 

dread  she  showed  in  her  relentless  persecution  of  the  Uniats. 
Urquhart,  on  the  other  hand,  saw  in  such  a  rapprochement 
the  only  hope  of  safety  for  both;  and  Mgr.  Dupanloup,  one 
of  the  ablest  of  politicians,  shared  his  view  when  it  was 
first  presented  to  him.i 

Whether,  however,  Urquhart  was  right  in  his  unswerving 
conviction  that  Russia,  in  her  fear  that  the  promulgation 
by  the  Pope  of  a  Law  that  would  unite  both  East  and  West, 
used  every  means  in  her  power,  open  and  secret,  to  prevent 
such  a  promulgation,  and  that  those  who  were  opposing 
the  dogma  of  Infallibility  were  unconsciously  or,  in  some 
few  cases,  even  consciously,  her  tools,  we  shall  never  know, 
unless  the  day  should  come  when  the  secrets  of  the  Russian 
Foreign  Office  are  completely  laid  bare. 

Meantime  we  can  but  tell  the  story  as  it  is  told  in 
Urquhart's  letters,  and  in  those  of  the  many  eminent  men — 
cardinals,  bishops,  priests  and  laymen — whom  he  drew  into 
his  magic  circle. 

When  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Urquhart  came  to  Rome  in  November, 
1869,  they  were  faced  with  unlooked-for  encouragements 
as  well  as  unexpected  disappointments.  Their  first  dis- 
appointment was  in  the  attitude  of  the  Cardinal  Secretary 
of  State,  Cardinal  Antonelli,  from  whom  Urquhart  had  been 
led  to  expect  not  only  interest  but  help.  Urquhart's 
friend  Dr.  Maupied^  had  written  that  the  Cardinal  had 
expressed  "  le  plus  vif  interet  "  in  his  writings  and  in  the 
Appeal  of  a  Protestcmt  to  the  Pope.  He  had  received  the 
news  of  Urquhart's  projected  visit  to  Rome  "  avec  la  plus 
parfaite  bienveillance."  "  Ainsi,"  writes  his  friend,  "  vous 
pouvez  venir  en  toute  confiance,  de  ce  cote,  du  moins." 
Urquhart  went  to  see  the  Cardinal  immediately  on  his 
arrival  in  Rome  and  found  him  useless  as  far  as  the  cause 
was  concerned.  "  Sincere  but  frivolous  "  was  the  estimate 
of  his  character. 

"  David,"  says  Mrs.  Urquhart  in  her  diary,  "  has  had 
his  interview  with  Cardinal  Antonelli.     It  made  me  feel 

^  See  Correspondence  between  David  Urquhart  and  the  Bishop 
of  Orleans  published  in  the  Diplomatic  Eeview,  February  2,  1870. 
2  Professor  at  the  Sorbonne  and  Canon  of  Kheims. 


THE  VATICAN  COUNCIL  255 

in  despair  so  that  I  wanted  to  leave  Rome,  for  M.  Maupied 
had  made  me  think  that  he  was  quite  favourable.  The 
want  of  faith  in  these  Princes  of  the  Church  struck  me  very 
much,  until  it  came  into  my  mind  that  it  was  I  who  was 
wanting  in  faith  to  be  so  cast  down." 

In  spite  of  this  disappointment,  however,  Urquhart  had 
a  unique  position  in  Rome  from  the  moment  of  his  arrival 
— ^a  position  which  grew  more  assured  and  more  remarkable 
as  he  gained  adherent  after  adherent  among  the  Western 
bishops:  the  Easterns  were  his  already.  His  house  was 
common  ground  where  East  and  West  could  meet,  under 
conditions  most  favourable  to  a  mutual  understanding. 
He  rallied  round  him  Armenians,  Maronites,  United  Greeks 
and  Western  cardinals  and  bishops  as  no  one  else  in  Rome, 
or  indeed  in  Evirope,  could  have  done,  for  to  many  of  these 
dignified  Oriental  prelates  his  name  had  been,  from  their 
cradles,  a  household  word. 

As  soon  as  the  Armenians  arrived,  with  the  Decrees  passed 
by  their  Synod,  a  meeting  was  held  at  which  assembled 
patriarchs  and  bishops  of  the  East  and  West.  At  this 
meeting,  which  Mrs.  Urquhart  in  writing  to  her  son  in 
Montreux  called  "  a  little  Council  of  our  own,"  Urquhart 
presided,  introduced  the  prelates  to  one  another,  and  spoke 
of  the  objects  they  had  in  view—"  the  re-establishment  of 
Society  on  its  three  bases  of  justice,  statesmanship  and 
charity." 

"  And  then,"  he  says,  writing  to  an  absent  friend,  "  I 
had  nothing  more  to  do.  It  was  no  longer  for  a  Protestant 
and  a  layman  to  speak  to  bishops;  it  was  for  the  bishops 
of  the  East  to  set  forth  to  the  bishops  of  the  West  the 
means  of  saving  Society." 

"  You,"  said  the  Archbishop  of  Tyre,  speaking  at  this 
memorable  assembly,  to  his  Western  brethren,  "  are 
accustomed  to  call  the  Turks  barbarians,  and  thereby  you 
have  acquired  a  habit  of  speaking  of  yourselves  as  cmhsed. 
But  we  believe  these  terms  ought  to  be  reversed.' 

No  Eastern  confessor,  the  Oriental  bishops  pointed  out, 
could  be  called  upon  to  absolve  a  man  for  murder  in  an 
unjust  war.     Unjust  war  in  the  European  sense  was  un- 


256  DAVID  URQUHART 

known  to  the  Mussulman,  "  who  could  not  draw  the  sword, 
even  though  he  were  the  Sultan  himself,  except  after  a 
judicial  sentence  given."  The  indifference  which  prevailed 
in  Christian  nations  as  to  the  justice  or  injustice  of  war 
was  to  them,  they  said,  living  under  Ottoman  rule,  a 
constant  source  of  shame  and  terror. 

By  his  knowledge  of  Eastern  customs  Urquhart  was  able 
to  make  life  in  Rome  less  strange  and  wearisome  to  the 
Oriental  bishops  than  it  might  have  been.  He  not  only 
took  a  fatherly  interest  in  their  comfort,  but  he  exerted 
himself  to  shield  them  from  the  corrupting  influence  ot 
Western  manners,  which  he  never  abhorred  so  whole- 
heartedly as  when  he  saw  them  contrasted  with  the  courteous 
dignity  of  the  East. 

"Your  father,"  writes  Mrs.  Urquhart  to  young  David  in 
Montreux,  "has  great  trouble  with  the  Easterns,  to  keep 
them  to  their  own  habits  and  ways.  PeoiAe  will  shake 
hands  with  them  and  then,  when  invited  to  the  large  parties, 
they  begin  by  leaving  them  to  stand  up  in  the  crowd,  as 
the  Franks  do,  which  they  do  not  like  at  all.  Now  at  Mr. 
Bodenham's  and  Mr.  Monteith's  last  night  he  had  a  room 
settled  up  for  them  where  they  could  smoke  and  sit  down, 
into  which  ladies  were  not  admitted,  for  they  stare  at  them 
and  do  not  behave  at  all  well." 

Urquhart's  influence  amongst  the  Eastern  prelates  was 
so  much  a  recognised  fact  that  he  was  begged  by  the  Bishop 
of  Geneva  to  use  ib  in  order  to  counteract  the  dangerous 
effect  of  the  propaganda  which  was  being  carried  on  amongst 
them  by  Mgr.  Dupanloup  and  his  following  in  the  Council. 

It  is  an  old  story  now  that  the  strong  opposition  of  which 
Mgr.  Dupanloup  was  the  leader  was  firmly  convinced  that 
it  would  not  only  be  inopportune  but  dangerous  to  assert 
at  that  particular  moment  the  dogma  of  Papal  InfalHbility. 
In  the  case  of  the  French  bishops,  at  least,  the  motive  of 
the  opposition  was  in  the  main  political.  Urquhart  recog- 
nised this;  he  saw,  too,  that  the  enemies  of  the  Holy  See 
were  making  use  of  it  in  the  hope  of  preventing  any  authori- 
tative pronouncement  which  would  give  back  peace  to  the 
world  and  strengthen  her  own  position.     Neither  did  he 


THE  VATICAN  COUNCIL  257 

consider  the  whole  of  the  opposition  as  single-minded  and 
pure  in  their  intentions  as  was  Mgr.  Dupanloup. 

"II  y  a  ici,"  he  wrote  to  his  friend  Kinpresti  Pasha, 
une  majorite  simple,  savante,  bien-disposee,   mais  sans 
connaissance  du  monde  et  des  affaires  ou  des  pratiques 
parlementaires. 

"  II  y  a  une  petite  minorite  tapageuse,  insolente,  revo- 
lutionaire,  pan-slavist,  bysantine  et  athee.  Cette  minorite 
demande  au  Pape  de  se  refuser  aux  voix  de  la  majorite, 
tout  en  declarant  qu'il  cesse  d'etre  Pape  du  moment  qu'il 
cesse  d'etre  en  accord  avec  la  majorite." 

That  Dupanloup  should  put  himself  at  the  head  of  this 
petite  minorite  tapageuse "  was  the  more  grievous  to 
Urquhart  by  reason  of  the  great  hopes  he  had  entertained 
of  him.  An  integral  part  of  his  design  for  the  re-estabhsh- 
ment  of  the  Law  of  Nations  was  that  diplomatic  relations 
should  be  opened  up  between  Rome  and  Constantinople, 
and  that  the  two  powers  which  still  stood  for  Public  Law 
in  Europe  should  strengthen  each  other's  hands  by  union. 
It  was  a  bold  idea  to  put  before  a  French  bishop,  but 
Mgr.  Dupanloup,  when  it  was  first  presented  to  him  in  1867,^ 
had  welcomed  it.  It  would  open,  as  he  very  well  saw,  a 
door  for  the  reunion  of  the  Slav  populations  with  Rome. 
Counting  upon  his  help,  Urquhart  had  put  the  Bishop  of 
Orleans  into  communication  with  many  of  his  Eastern 
friends,  including  the  Patriarch  of  the  Maronites  and  several 
Oriental  bishops.  It  was  with  a  feeling  little  short  of 
consternation  that  he  discovered  that  the  Bishop  projDosed 
to  use  the  influence  he  had  thus  gained  "  to  come  to  the 
Council  followed  by  a  phalanx  of  Eastern  bishops  prepared 
to  support  him  against  the  dogma  of  Infallibility." 

The  Eastern  Catholic  world  was  already  disturbed.  A 
party  among  the  Armenians,  unsettled  by  the  Bull 
Beversus,  in  which  some  of  the  bishops  saw  an  attempt 
on  the  part  of  Rome  to  interfere  with  their  freedom  of 
election,  had  been  stirred  up  by  the  French  and  Russian 
Governments,  acting   through  their  Embassies,  into  open 

^  Urquhart  had,  at  Mgr.  Dupanloup's  request,  drawn  up,  in  1867, 
a  short  memoir  of  the  effect  Russia  had  had  on  European  politics. 
It  was  published  in  the  Diplomatic  Review  in  May,  1870. 

n 


258  DAVID  URQUHART 

rebellion  against  the  Holy  See.^  When,  on  the  top  of  this, 
the  East  was  startled  by  the  Bishop  of  Orleans'  Pastoral 
warning  the  world  that  the  East  would  look  upon  the 
proclamation  of  the  dogma  as  an  attempt  to  override  their 
liberties,  and  that  it  would  set  up  a  barrier  between  East 
and  West,  there  was  great  danger  that  the  presence  of 
the  Easterns  at  the  Council  would  end  in  a  fiasco.  "  The 
Russian  agents,"  says  an  Eastern  missionary  in  1869, 
"  whether  in  our  midst  or  among  the  schismatics  or  in  the 
subsidised  press  of  Constantinople,  all  bring  forward  the 
Pastoral  of  the  Bishop  of  Orleans." 

There  had  evidently  been,  as  Urquhart  very  well  saw, 
a  volte-face  on  the  part  of  the  Bishop  since  their  last  meeting 
on  the  feast  of  St.  Charles  Borromeo  in  1867.  Since  then, 
the  communications  between  them  had  been  infrequent 
and  by  letter,  and  Urquhart  was  not  entirely  certain  what 
new  position  he  would  take  up. 

The  request,  however,  of  Mgr.  Mermillod  that  he  would 
try  and  counteract  his  influence  with  the  Easterns  required 
immediate  attention.  The  moment  was  critical.  It  was 
the  morning  of  the  very  day  on  which  a  great  meeting  of 
the  Eastern  and  Western  bishops  with  several  influential 
laymen  was  to  take  place  in  order  to  consider  how  the 
Decrees  of  the  Armenian  Synod  "  De  re  militari  et  bello  " 
should  be  presented  to  the  Commission  of  the  Council. 

In  the  afternoon,  before  the  others  arrived,  came  the 
Eastern  bishops  to  ask  Urquhart  what  he  advised  them  to 
do  on  the  subject  of  Papal  Infallibility. 

Now  to  deny  the  doctrine  of  Papal  Infallibility,  as  a 
doctrine,  was  in  Urquhart's  own  words  to  deny  the  faith. 
But  the  word  he  loathed.  It  was  one  of  those  "  hybrid 
words  of  modern  invention "  which  obscured  thought. 
Call  it  anything  else:  the  "  necessity  of  being  always  right," 
the  "  necessity  of  denial  of  error,"  anything  but  Infallibility, 
which  to  most  people  meant  "  the  Pope  can  say  what  he 
likes,  and  everyone  must  say  Amen." 

^  See  Le  Pairiarche  Hassoun,  publislied  at  the  Diplomatic  Beview 
office  1873.  It  contains  the  history  of  the  schism  and  its  couueotiou 
with  the  Council. 


THE  VATICAN  COUNCIL  259 

With  true  diplomatic  wisdom  he  refused  to  answer  the 
question  privately,  and  begged  Mgr.  Mermillod  to  put 
it  to  him  in  the  meeting  in  the  name  of  the  Oriental  bishops. 
He  then  answered  as  follows:  "  I  understand  no  more  than 
you  do  what  is  meant  by  the  word  Infallibility.  To  me 
the  word  is  devoid  of  meaning.  It  is  a  modern  word  of 
evil  days,  and  was  unknown  at  the  Council  of  Florence, 
which  contains  all  that  is  necessary  to  establish  in  the 
Primacy  this  supreme  Authority  in  the  Church,  which  is 
necessary,  not  only  for  its  integrity,  but  for  the  rectitude  of 
conscience  of  each  believer."  "To  this,"  says  Urquhart, 
"  there  was  neither  opposition  nor  reply.  The  meeting 
proceeded  with  its  business.  It  drew  up  two  Postulata, 
both  based  on  the  Decrees  of  the  Armenian  Synod,  one  in 
Arabic,  signed  by  the  Eastern  bishops,  and  another  which 
was  translated  into  Latin  and  signed  not  only  by  everyone 
present,  but  ultimately  by  many  of  the  most  prominent 
ecclesiastics    in    Rome.i      Thus    was    justified    Urquhart's 

^  De  ke  Militari  et  Bello. 

This  Postiilatum,  of  which  the  following  is  a  translation,  will  be 
found  on  page  861  of  the  Acta  et  Decreta  SS.  Con.  Vat. 

"  Postulatum  from  many  bishops  to  be  reverently  laid  before 
our  most  holy  Lord,  Pius  IX.  and  the  Sacrosanct  Council  of  the 
Vatican : 

"  The  present  condition  of  the  world  has  become  almost  insupport- 
able by  reason  of  the  huge  standing  armies  which  are  raised  by 
conscription. 

"  The  peoples  groan  under  the  burden  which  is  laid  upon  them. 

"  The  spirit  of  irreligion  and  the  neglect  of  Law  in  so-called 
International  ASairs  open  an  easy  way  to  wars,  unlawful  and  unjust 
— or,  to  speak  more  truly,  to  the  terrible  slaughter  which  spreads 
over  the  world. 

"  Hence  the  resources  of  the  poor  are  threatened,  commercial 
relations  are  broken  up,  the  conscience  of  men  is  involved  in  deep 
and  deadly  error,  or  it  is  grievously  wounded,  and  many  souls  are 
plunged  into  eternal  ruin. 

"To  so  many  and  great  evils  the  Church  alone  can  provide  a 
remedy. 

"  Though  all  will  not  listen  to  her  voice,  still  she  will  ever  stand 
forth  as  guide  to  countless  thousands  and,  sooner  or  later,  must 
produce  an  effect. 

"  Moreover,  whatever  is  firmly  estabUshed  by  eternal  principles 
approves  itself  to  the  Divine  Majesty,  nor  can  it  be  without  fruit. 

"  There  are  grave  and  serious  men,  versed  in  public  affaii's,  who 
look  upon  the  condition  of  the  world  and  the  Church  in  these  matters 
in  the  same  light  as  all  holy  men  devoted  to  religion. 


260  DAVID  URQUHART 

prophecy  when  he  sent  Monteith  to  Constantinople,  that 
if  the  Easterns  gave  them  a  lead  the  Westerns  would 
follow  it. 

Armed  with  this  document  Urquhart  went  to  see  the 
Bishop  of  Orleans.  He  was  accompanied  by  his  wife,  who 
gives  an  account  of  the  interview  in  her  diary. 

"  After  talldng  of  the  weather  and  my  children,  whom  he 
had  known  at  Nice,  David  said  to  him,  '  Vos  moments, 
Monseigneur,  sont  precieux.  Je  veux  en  profiter  pour 
dire  deux  choses.  La  premiere  est  pour  vous  demander 
votre  concurrence  comme  vous  me  I'avez  promise  a  Orleans.' 
He  then  put  into  his  hands  the  Postulatum.  He  read  it, 
and  putting  it  back  into  David's  hands  said, '  Et  la  seconde? ' 
David  said,  '  Will  you  support  me  ?' 

"  He  answered,  '  I  cannot  support  this.' 

May  I  ask  your  reasons  ?'  said  David.     '  For  there  is 
nothing  I  have  proposed  which  is  not  in  the  ancient  Canons.' 

"  '  I  do  not  dispute  the  principle,'  said  the  Bishop,  '  but 
I  deny  the  opportuneness.' 

"  '  But,'  said  David,  '  we  have  discussed  all  these  things 
already  at  Orleans,  and  you  then  promised  me  your  help.' 

"  '  II  y  a  erreur  dans  tout  ceci,'  said  the  Bishop.  '  II  y 
a  eu  malentendu. ' 

"  David :  '  Then  that  incident  is  over,  and  I  may  put  the 
papers  back  in  my  pocket.' 

"  Upon  this  Dupanloup  hesitated  a  little,  and  then  said: 
'  Si  le  Pape  nous  fait  ces  propositions  je  les  accepterai, 
mais  s'il  me  consulte  sur  I'opportunite  je  le  conseillerai  de 
ne  pas  le  faire.'  " 

This  was  the  utmost  which  Urquhart  could  obtain.  The 
Bishop,  whose  subsequent  conduct  gives  some  reason  for 
the  supposition  that  his  own  heart  sided  with    Urquhart 

"  All  these  are  equally  persuaded  of  the  necessity  for  a  declaration 
of  that  part  of  the  Canon  Law  which  deals  with  the  Law  of  Nations, 
and  with  the  character  of  war,  and  defines  how  it  becomes  either 
a  duty  or  a  crime. 

"When  the  moralconscience  of  men  shall  have  thus  been  instructed, 
then  shall  we  see  the  removal  of  the  dangers  which  now  hang  over 
us,  an  end  which  we  cannot  hope  to  attain  either  by  worldly  j)rudence 
or  by  political  adjustments. 

"  This  Postulatum,  which  was  presented  February  10,  1870,  was 
signed  by  forty  Conciliar  Fathers." 

Postulatum  B. — i.e.,  the  Postuhition  of  the  Patriarchal  Synod  of  the 
Armenians — is  given  in  the  Appendix. 


THE  VATICAN  COUNCIL  261 

against  his  policy,  refused  to  give  this  uncompromising 
champion  of  a  cause  to  which  he  had  once  admitted  his 
adherence  another  chance  of  attacking  him  in  the  open. 

Bishop  Dupanloup  not  only  abandoned  Urquhart's  cause 
himself,  but  drew  away  in  his  train  one  of  his  most  ardent 
supporters,  a  personality  even  more  picturesque  than  his 
own,  the  great  leader  of  the  Catholic  Pan-Slavist  movement, 
Bishop  Strossmayer,  who  gave  as  a  reason  for  his  defection 
that  the  proclamation  by  the  Council  of  such  Decrees  as 
were  contained  in  the  Postulatum,  would  prevent  Austria 
from  dismembering  the  Ottoman  Empire. 

"  Mgr.  Dupanloup,"  says  Urquhart  in  a  letter  to  Stross- 
mayer, "  gives  as  a  reason  for  not  defining  the  Law  of 
Nations  that  such  a  definition  would  remain  without  effect. 

"  Mgr.  Strossmayer  gives  as  a  reason  that  such  a  definition 
would  prevent  a  great  crime  and  a  great  misfortune  to 
Europe  and  to  the  human  race. 

"  In  case  your  Lordship  does  not  judge  it  opportune  to 
allow  me  to  discuss  the  matter  with  you,  I  take  the  liberty 
of  adding  here  that  if  you  should  shed  the  last  drop  of 
your  blood,  as  you  declare  yourself  ready  to  do,  for  what 
you  call  the  liberation  of  the  Sclavonic  race,  such  a  sacrifice 
would  only  be  made  for  its  enslavement,  since  a  successful 
result  of  such  an  undertaking  will  only  reduce  the  Sclave 
populations  of  the  Ottoman  Empire  to  the  condition  of  the 
Poles.  .  .  .  Pan-Slavism  is  nothing  in  the  world  but  a 
Russian  plot." 

Urquhart's  argument,  however,  proved  unavailing. 
Strossmayer  as  well  as  Dupanloup  refused  to  sign  the 
Postulatum. 

Day  by  day  the  cause  gained  fresh  adherents,  and  to  its 
success  the  Eastern  bishops  contributed  not  a  little.  The 
Romans  could  not  say  that  they  heard  of  the  courtesy  and 
dignity  of  Eastern  manners  only  from  a  Turcophile  English- 
man. They  were  there  before  the  eyes  of  all  beholders. 
It  was  not  from  the  lips  of  a  Protestant  layman  that  people 
heard  that  the  Justice  and  Law  which  Christians  had  for- 
gotten were  to  be  found  enthroned  in  the  East,  in  the  heart 
of  a  nation  which  they  had  all  their  lives  despised.  They 
were  forced  into  contrasting  with  the  suspicion  and  dislike 


262  DAVID  URQUHART 

shown  to  the  Council  by  European  Governments,  the 
courtesy  and  generosity  of  the  Sultan,  who  had  not  only 
encouraged  the  bishops  of  the  Eastern  Rites  to  attend  it, 
but  had  placed  a  warship  at  the  disposal  of  those  who 
wished  to  go.  They  could  not  but  connect  this  respect  for 
Law  of  the  Mussulman  with  the  support  which  had  been 
given  by  the  Turkish  Government  to  the  Decrees  of  the 
Armenian  Synod  assembled  at  Constantinople,  calling  for 
the  restoration  by  the  Holy  See  of  Law  between  nation 
and  nation.  They  could  not  fail  to  perceive  that  it  was 
due  to  such  support  that  the  Eastern  prelates  had  been 
able  to  do  what  the  Western  prelates  could  not,  and  set 
aside  for  the  Council  the  maxim  "II  ne  faut  pas  sortir  de 
la  sacristie  " — a  maxim  diametrically  opposed  to  the  claim 
which  the  Pope  had  put  forth  in  the  Syllabus,  the  claim 
of  the  Church  to  rule  over  the  consciences  of  communities 
as  well  as  over  those  of  individual  men. 

The  Eastern  bishops,  however,  were  not  the  only  propa- 
gandists. As  the  days  went  by  Urquhart's  alert  figure, 
with  its  brilliant  blue  eyes  and  soft,  fair  hair  waving  round 
his  head  like  an  aureole,  became  a  familiar  figure  not  only 
in  the  houses  of  prominent  English  laymen,  but  at  the 
receptions  of  bishops  and  cardinals.  Amongst  his  sup- 
porters he  now  counted,  not  only  such  enthusiastic  friends 
as  Mgr.  Mermillod,  the  Bishop  of  Rodez,  the  Bishop  of 
Nevers,  but  many  a  high  ecclesiastic  who,  having  first 
made  his  acquaintance  in  Rome,  remained  attached  to  him 
throughout  the  rest  of  his  life. 

There  was  an  irresistible  charm  about  him.  He  was 
youth  incarnate,  daring,  fearless,  capable  alike  of  the 
keenest  enjoyment  and  the  deepest  despair. 

Pere  Roh,i  the  Jesuit,  meeting  him  for  the  first  time, 
says: 

"  C'est  la  franchise  elle-meme,  la  franchise  poussee 
jusqu'a  la  grosierete.  Mais  il  n'est  pas  du  tout  entete. 
C'est  I'homme  du  monde  qui  se  rend  le  plus  facilement  a 
la  raison.     Si  on  veut  lui  faire  faire  quelque  chose  ou  ne 

1  Celebrated  German  Jesuit,  Professor  of  Theology  at  Freiburg 
and  Paderborn. 


THE  VATICAN  COUNCIL  263 

pas  le  faire  on  a  seulement  d'aller  chez  lui  et  lui  dire  les 
raisons,  si  toutefois  on  a  des  raisons  a  donner." 

He  captured  whole  sections  of  Roman  society  by  taking 
away  its  breath.  The  first  time  he  met  Mgr.  Franchi/ 
who  afterwards  became  one  of  his  closest  friends,  he  said 
to  him : 

"  You  must  accept  what  I  have  to  say  in  all  its  apparent 
rudeness  and  extravagance.  I  am  against  everyone,  I  am 
a  revolutionary  in  everything.  You  know  well  that  all  I 
propose  is  very  ancient.  But  still  in  each  case  it  is  as 
regards  the  actual  men  a  new  discovery  and  is  in  opposition 
with  all  that  exists." 

Popular  as  he  became,  he  cared  nothing  for  his  popularity 
save  as  it  served  the  great  cause.  "  Your  father  says," 
writes  Mrs.  Urquhart  to  her  son,  "  that  we  are  taking  as 
much  pains  to  save  the  world  as  most  people  do  to  get  into 
Society,  as  it  is  called."     Her  diary  is  a  record  of  busy  days  : 

"  January  20th. — Lord  Stanley  gave  a  dinner  party  of 
bishops  and  the  Postulatum  was  signed. 

"  January  24:th. — David  went  to  Cardinal  de  Bonnechose's 
reception  with  the  Bishop  de  Nevers.  Very  well  received. 
All  the  bishops  thanked  him  for  what  he  had  done. 

"  January  2Qth. — David  at  the  Palazzo  Bernini.  Very 
useful.     Bishop  of  Carcassonne. 

"  January  31st. — David  saw  Cardinal  Pitra  and  Cardinal 
de  Angelis.  Delighted  with  Cardinal  Pitra;  more  than  hour 
with  each. 

"  February  1st. — David  in  the  evening  to  Cardinal  de 
Lucca's  reception.  Bishops  of  Poitiers,  Nevers,  Mgr. 
Franchi,  and  the  Comte  de  Breda  dined  with  us." 

Not  only  did  Urquhart  thus  get  into  touch  with  the  great 
world  of  Rome,  he  was,  so  to  speak,  in  its  confidence.  His 
transparent  honesty,  his  innate  nobility  of  soul  established 
for  him  relationships  which  were  never  broken. 

"  Nous  regardons  M.  Urquhart  tout  comme  un  eveque," 

1  Mgr.  Franchi  was  titular  Arclibishop  of  Thessalonica,  Secretary  of 
the  Congregation  of  Ecclesiastical  Affairs,  and  Consultor  of  Propa- 
ganda for  the  Affairs  of  the  Oriental  Rites,  He  had  been  appointed 
in  1867  Consulter  of  the  Politico-Ecclesiastical  Commission  of  the 
Congregation,  which  had  general  charge  of  the  arrangements  for  the 
Council. 


264  DAVID  URQUHART 

said  a  Western  prelate  to  Mgr.  Azarian.^  "  S'il  est  eveque," 
the  other  answered,  "  il  est  d'un  Ordre  a  lui,  car  il  n'y  a  pas 
d'autres." 

"  Non-obstant  le  secret,"  he  writes  to  Rustem  Bey,  "  je 
suis  au  courant  de  tout  ce  qui  se  passe." 

On  one  occasion,  whilst  he  was  with  the  Cardinal  de 
Bonnechose,  the  bishop  of  Moulins  came  in  to  talk  official 
business.  The  Cardinal  plunged  into  a  discussion  about 
the  Council  much  to  the  surprise  of  the  visitor,  who 
became  very  reticent.  "  You  may  say  anything,"  said 
the  Cardinal.     "  M.  Urquhart  est  un  de  nous." 

The  General  of  the  Jesuits  came  himself  to  see  Urquhart 
and  discuss  his  proposal  for  a  Diplomatic  College,  or  at  least 
for  the  training  of  men  in  "  law,  diplomacy  and  etiquette." 

"  The  Father  listened  with  great  patience,"  said  Urquhart, 
"  and  sustained  attention,  though  he  had  just  come  from 
a  fatiguing  sitting  of  the  Council.  I  hid  from  him  nothing 
of  my  thought,  either  about  the  depth  of  ignorance  that 
exists,  or  the  fatal  consequences  of  crime  and  infidelity 
which  have  followed  it.  I  spoke  of  the  part  which  the 
Church  or  modern  ecclesiastics  have  had  in  the  production 
of  the  disasters  of  the  world,  and  the  infidelity  of  men,  and 
the  suffering  of  Society  by  not  fulfilling  its  duty  as  a  teacher." 

The  interview  resulted  in  the  appointment  of  a  small 
committee  of  ecclesiastics  to  consider  the  possibility  of 
such  a  College.2 

All  this  time,  however,  Urquhart  was  waiting  for  the  goal 
of  his  desire — an  audience  with  the  Holy  Father.  It  was  a 
great  thing  to  have  gained  the  ear  of  these  others ;  but  after 
all  he  had  come  to  see  the  Pope.  There  was  a  small  but 
energetic  party  of  men  who,  for  various  reasons,  were  against 
him.  Some,  like  the  Bishop  of  Orleans  and  Bishop  Stross- 
mayer,  took  their  stand  on  motives  of  high  political  import ; 
others  objected  to  the  interference  of  a  Protestant  layman 
in  matters  which  they  persuaded  themselves  concerned 
only  Catholic  ecclesiastics.      Such  was  a  certain  French 

1  Vicar-General  to  Mgr.  Hassoun,  Patriarch  of  Constantinople. 

2  This  scheme  sprang  from  the  suggestions  in  the  "  Appeal  to  the 
Pope." 


THE  VATICAN  COUNCIL  265 

priest  who,  in  reply  to  Urquhart's  remark  that,  the  Oriental 
bishops  not  having  yet  arrived,  he  did  not  know  for  certain 
whether  the  Decrees  were  passed  or  not  in  their  entirety, 
said,  "  But,  of  course,  you  as  a  Protestant  and  a  layman 
could  not  have  Decrees  communicated  to  you."  Urquhart 
answered  him  with  the  simplicity  which  was  one  of  his 
greatest  charms,  "  Mais  c'est  moi  qui  les  ai  rediges." 

But  those  who  feared  his  methods  and  tried  to  reproduce 
at  Rome,  happily  without  success,  the  indifference  with 
which  his  own  country  had  treated  the  high  ideals  and 
strenuous  work  of  a  lifetime,  were  his  most  insidious  op- 
ponents. Happily  for  him  he  had  influential  friends  at 
Court.  "I  know,"  he  wrote,  "that  within  the  last  few 
days,  four  Cardinals  have  begged  him  to  grant  me  the 
necessary  time."  Some  of  his  most  zealous  English  friends, 
moreover,  had  the  ear  of  the  Pope  and  could  refute  calumnies. 
Lord  Denbigh  had  an  excellent  opportunity  when  the  Holy 
Father,  in  reply  to  a  suggestion  that  he  would  do  well  to 
see  Urquhart,  answered,  "  But  thej^  tell  me  he  is  of  no 
consequence,  that  it  is  not  worth  seeing  him,  that  no 
one  in  England  listens  to  him.  II  a  ecrit  une  brochure, 
n'est-ce-pas  ?"  By  way  of  answer  Lord  Denbigh  sent  to 
the  Pope  a  sketch  of  Urquhart's  life  as  well  as  a  small 
selection  from  his  written  works. 

In  spite  of  opposition  Urquhart's  friends  at  last  pre- 
vailed, and  on  February  9th,  1870,  he  obtained  his  long- 
desired  interview  with  the  Pope.  It  was  a  private  audience 
of  the  most  friendly  nature,  and  in  it  the  Father  of  Christen- 
dom more  than  justified  Urquhart's  expectations. 

"  I  arrived  at  the  Vatican,"  he  says,  "  on  the  greatest 
day  of  my  life  at  twenty  minutes  to  six.  The  audience 
was  fixed  for  six,  and  I  was  admitted  five  minutes  later. 
Having  made  my  reverence  as  to  an  Eastern  Sovereign 
with  my  two  hands,  he  raised  me  up  and  made  me  sit  in 
an  armchair  close  to  the  one  which  he  occupied  himself. 
'  Enfin  je  vous  vols,'  he  said,  '  Dieu  vous  a  inspire  les  plus 
justes  vues  sur  les  plus  grandes  questions.' 

"  I  had  in  my  hand  a  copy  of  the  Appeal  in  Latin  and 
of  the  Canon  Law  in  French,  and  said:  '  Je  depose  aux 
pieds  de  votre  Saintete  et  de  votre  Majeste  I'appel  que  je 


266  DAVID  URQUHART 

lui  ai  fait  au  nom  du  Droit  foule  et  de  I'humanite  abrutie.' 
He  replied,  '  Mais  je  I'ai  lu,  je  I'ai  ici '  (placing  his  hand  on 
the  desk)  '  et  j'approuve  tout  ce  qu'il  contient.'  " 

Urquhart  then  presented  to  him  the  petition  of  the  women 
of  Macclesfield,  mentioning  to  him  that  it  had  been  signed 
by  400  of  the  women  of  Macclesfield  in  England. 

"  Que  demandent-elles  ?"  said  the  Pope. 
"La  restauration  du  Droit  des  Gens,"  answered  Urquhart 
"  Les    femmes    commencent    a    jouer    un    grand    role," 
remarked  the  Pope. 

After  a  pause  Urquhart  begged  permission  to  read  to  the 
Pope  twelve  points^  to  which  he  wished  to  call  his  atten- 

*  The  twelve  points  were  given  in  French.  This  is,  however,  a 
translation  of  them  from  Mrs.  Bishop's  Life  of  3Irs.  Urquhart. 

"1.  The  power  possessed  hy  the  Revolution  has  its  origin  in  the 
fact  that  the  Public  Law  of  Nations,  and  consequently  the  Law  of 
God,  is  neither  comprehended  nor  applied  in  human  societies. 

"  2.  The  Revolution  is  cunning,  for  it  uses  the  veil  of  deceptive 
words,  which  lead  honest  men  and  even  bishops  astray. 

"  3.  Russia  uses  Revolution  as  her  instrument,  and  alone  profits 
by  its  crimes. 

"  4.  Your  Holiness,  who  represents  the  conscience  of  mankind, 
is  the  only  man  who  can  re-establish  Public  Law. 

"  5.  Hence  it  is  that  in  the  East  it  has  been  sought  to  lessen  your 
authority,  and  that  certain  bishops  have  not  understood  that  they 
are  serving  the  purposes  of  the  Revolution  and  of  Russia. 

"  6.  In  the  West  we  have  been  able  to  perceive  that  the  whole 
debate  between  Law  and  Revolution  is  summed  up  in  your  authority. 

Thus  at  the  Peace  Congress  at  Geneva,  which  personified  the 
struggle,  there  were  but  two  parties  to  it — the  Pope,  defended  by  the 
Catholics  and  me;  and  Garibaldi,  supported  by  Russia  and  the  Revolu- 
tionary Party. 

"  T.  It  is  for  this  reason  that  I  have  chosen  Constantinople  and 
Geneva  as  residences  and  posts  for  my  observations,  and  I  have 
come  to  Rome  as  the  centre  of  Light,  of  Law,  and  of  Respect. 

"  8.  The  Eastern  bishops  have  been  almost  unanimous.  The 
bishops  of  the  West  who  have  been  the  warmest  defenders  of  this 
question  of  Public  Law  are  Monsignor  Manning,  Monsignor  Des 
Champs  (Bishop  of  Malines),  and  Monsignor  Mermillod,  all  three 
independent  of  Governments  and  diplomacy.  AU  three  they  contend 
in  behalf  of  justice  in  the  cities  which  are  centres  of  Revolution  in 
the  West — London,  Brussels,  and  Geneva. 

9.  The  practical  means  is  to  profit  by  the  Council. 

10.  Obedience  will  return  to  men  when  ignorance  is  dispelled. 
IL  For  thirty  years  I  have  been  solely  devoted  to  this  question 

and  its  issues, 

"  12.  Support  would  be  gained  by  the  establishment  of  diplomatic 
relations  between  the  Holy  See  and  the  Porte,  which  would  facilitate 
the  reunion  of  the  Christian  populations  of  the  East." 


THE  VATICAN  COUNCIL  267 

tion,  and  which  he  had  written  down  in  case  he  should  forget 
any  of  them. 

"I  looked,"  he  said,  "to  see  if  he  showed  any  signs  of 
fatigue,  but  it  was  with  great  interest  that  he  observed  my 
large  sheet  and  he  listened  with  unfailing  attention  to  the 
end,  only  interrupting  me  to  ask  the  meaning  of  some 
phrase  or  to  signify  his  approval. 

"When  I  had  finished  he  remained  for  some  time  in 
silence,  and  then  made  sundry  observations  on  the  state 
of  the  world  which  I  did  not  altogether  catch,  and  which 
seemed  to  me  to  be  interior  reflections.  Then  he  said, 
'  You  have  been  some  time  in  Rome  ?'  I  replied,  '  I  have 
been  in  Rome  more  than  three  months.  I  came  here  at 
a  very  great  sacrifice  in  the  hopes  that  your  Holiness  might 
under  the  circumstances  be  able  to  make  some  use  of  me 
'  a  I'exterieur  '  and  for  the  instruction  of  others  in  the  present 
diplomatic  conditions.  My  efforts  up  to  the  present  have 
remained  fruitless,  but  I  have  still  a  month  which  I  can 
devote  to  your  Holiness'  service.' 

"  '  You  have  travelled  in  Turkey  ?'  said  the  Pope. 

"  '  I  took  a  considerable  share  in  the  affairs  of  Turkey 
at  an  age  when  most  men  are  still  at  college.  By  the 
confidence  of  the  Sultan  Mahmoud  and  of  his  three  suc- 
cessors I  took  part  in  the  financial  and  military  reconstruc- 
tion of  the  kingdom  and  in  interior  and  exterior  politics.  .  . 
I  was  among  them  as  one  of  themselves,  and  a  late  Grand 
Vizier  remarked,  '  II  est  trois  fois  Turc'  " 

In  a  few  words  Urquhart  indicated  the  true  inwardness 
of  the  relations  between  England  and  Turkey. 

Then  the  Pope  returned  to  the  consideration  of  the  twelve 
points,  referring  especially  to  his  suggestion  that  diplo- 
matic relations  should  be  established  between  Rome  and 
the  Sublime  Porte.  The  obstacles  to  such  a  proceeding,  he 
said,  would  not  arise  in  Rome,  they  would  come  from 
France.  Neither  did  he  see  that  such  a  Mission  could  be 
undertaken  at  that  moment,  "  puisque  nous  sommes  tous 
occupes  tous  les  moments.  Moi-meme  "...  (and  he  raised 
his  arms  and  bowed  his  head  with  a  gesture  of  infinite 
weariness)  "  j'ai.  .   .  ." 

"  I  ventured  to  interrupt  him,"  says  Urquhart,  "  with 
'  Ce  monde  la  ne  doit  pas  faire  beaucoup  souffrir  de  telles 
epaules.' 


268  DAVID  URQUHART 

"  He  looked  at  me  fixedly,  shaking  his  head,  and  I  con- 
tinued : 

"  '  Ces  choses  sont  petites  et  sont  pour  les  grands  hommes. 
Les  choses  que  j'ai  a  presenter  sont  de  grandes  choses. 
Pour  elles  il  faut  de  petits  hommes.' 

"  To  this  apparently  enigmatical  speech  the  Pope  made 
no  reply.  He  returned  to  the  discussion  of  the  Appeal  and 
Urquhart's  proposals  for  the  restoration  of  the  Law  of 
Nations,  and  finished  the  conversation  by  saying  solemnly, 
"  Maintenant  la  premiere  pierre  est  posee  !" 

"  I  will  keep  you  ever,"  he  continued,  "  in  my  memory. 
I  will  pray  God  to  grant  you  that  all  may  be  well  with  you 
in  this  life,  and  I  hope  that  the  day  will  come  in  the  next 
when  in  all  things  you  and  I  may  be  at  one." 

Urquhart  was  entirely  satisfied  with  his  interview. 

"  The  Pope,"  he  said,  "  is  extremely  wise  and  shrewd, 
but  at  the  same  time  very  kind  and  fatherly." 

"  Le  Pape,"  he  writes  to  M.  Le  Play,  "  a  justifie  toutes 
mes  anticipations;  j'ai  ete  aussi  loin  qu'il  m'est  possible 
d'aller.  Pendant  trois  mois  on  m'a  barre  sa  porte.  Elle 
ne  s'est  ouverte  a  la  fin  que  par  une  decision  prise  par 
lui-meme.  .  .  .  J'ai  trouve  ce  que  j'ai  prevu:  Le  Pape  et 
le  Pape  seul  r 

Immediately  after  the  interview  the  Pope  appointed 
Mgr.  Franchi  (afterwards  Cardinal  Secretary  of  State  to 
Leo  XIII.)  to  be  the  intermediary  between  himself  and 
Urquhart.  Between  the  two  men  there  sprang  up  a  great 
degree  of  intimacy.  In  his  intercourse  with  Mgr.  Franchi 
Urquhart  experienced  the  unusual  joy  of  finding  all  his 
projects  at  once  understood  and  appreciated.  The  day 
after  the  audience  he  unfolded  to  him  in  a  three  hours'  con- 
versation his  long  cherished  schemes  for  the  establishment 
of  diplomatic  relations  between  Rome  and  the  East,  and  the 
foundation  of  an  International  Diplomatic  College  in  Rome. 

"  Votre  plan,"  said  Franchi,  "est  aussi  pratique  que 
magnifique  et  necessaire.      Maintenant  la  premiere  pierre 

est  posee." 

"  C'est  le  Saint  Pere  qui  a  dit  cela  a  I'audience,"  said 
Urquhart.     "  C'est  la  secoJide  pierre  qui  vient  d'etre  posee." 


THE  VATICAN  COUNCIL  269 

Two  days  later,  "  by  the  Pope's  desire,  Mgr.  Franchi 
called  upon  David  to  consult  him  about  the  Regulations 
for  the  Council,"!  says  Mrs.  Urquhart  in  her  diary,  "  and 
asked  him  to  write  an  article  about  them.  He  was  here 
from  eleven  o'clock  till  one,  and  went  minutely  into  all  the 
regulations  as  they  then  existed,  and  mentioned  the  new 
ones  to  be  made." 

The  same  day  the  Postulatum  De  re  militari  et  hello, 
signed  by  forty  Conciliar  Fathers,  was  presented  to  the 
Commission  for  consideration.  Thus  they  had  before  them 
not  only  the  Postulatum  of  the  Armenian  Synod,  but  one 
signed  by  a  large  and  influential  body  of  Western  Bishops. 
Though  it  was  sent  in  the  name  of  the  Fathers  of  the  Council 
it  was  Urquhart's  work,  and  everyone  recognised  it  to 
be  so. 

"  Up  to  the  present,"  he  says,  in  a  letter  to  a  friend  in 
England,  "  no  ecclesiastic  and  no  Catholic  has  taken  any 
leading  part  in  the  work.  They  speak  to  me  of  '  your 
Postulatum '  and  '  your  business.'  The  Pope  said  to 
Mgr.  Mermillod  the  other  day,  'I  hope  Mr.  Urquhart's 
work  is  progressing.'  " 

But  though  the  work  was  his  there  were  many  who  shared 
his  joy  in  the  success  which  had  been  obtained  and  his  hope 
for  the  future.  "1  present,"  said  Mgr.  Mermillod,  "la 
semance  est  jettee,  la  neige  peut  venir;  cela  ne  I'empechera 
pas  de  pousser." 

Obviously  the  audience  and  the  Pope's  evident  considera- 
tion for  the  Protestant  layman  greatly  increased  his  prestige. 
His  name  was  on  all  the  lists  of  official  receptions.  Cardinals 
eased  their  anxiety  and  refreshed  themselves  in  the  midst 
of  their  strenuous  work  and  harried  days  by  many  a  visit 
to  the  Via  Sistina  to  discuss  affairs  with  a  man  who  always 
saw  behind  the  scenes,  who  never  took  a  commonplace 
view,  and  who  never  hesitated  to  strike  a  warning  note 
when  it  might  be  of  use." 

"At  five.  Cardinal  de  Bonnechose,"  writes  Mrs.  Urquhart; 
"stayed  till  6.30.       Had  just  returned  from  the  French 

^  Probably  with  a  view  to  bringing  tlieni  into  line  with  con- 
temporary parliamentary  procedure. 


270  DAVID  URQUHART 

Embassy.  Much  depressed  and  alarmed.  Said  the  Council 
was  now  in  a  state  of  paralysis  and  seemed  smitten  with 
the  impossibility  of  concluding  anything.  Blamed  regula- 
tions and  spoke  of  Governments,  and  ended  by  acknow- 
ledging that  the  Church  might  declare  the  Law." 

The  delay  in  the  proceedings  of  the  Council  was  giving 
much  cause  for  alarm  to  those  who  were  watching  the  war 
clouds  gather  on  the  horizon  of  Europe.  Urquhart  especi- 
ally regarded  it  with  increasing  uneasiness,  convinced  as 
he  was  that  it  was  engineered  from  without. 

"  You  have  just  a  breathing  space,"  he  said.  "  If  you 
allow  the  opposition  to  go  on  so  as  to  be  able  to  do  nothing 
else  (than  to  pass  the  Decree  of  Infallibility)  events  will 
come  which  this  Declaration  as  to  war  might  prevent." 

It  may  seem  strange  that  a  "  rank  outsider "  like 
Urquhart  should  have  been  taken  so  far  behind  the  scenes 
in  Conciliar  matters,  but  it  was  after  all  in  keeping  with 
his  life  and  character.  Even  if  men  hated  him  they  always 
instinctively  trusted  him.  A  curious  incident  mentioned 
in  Mrs.  Urquhart's  diary  shows  how  well  that  trust  was 
merited  now. 

"  At  the  Cardinal  de  Bonnechose's  reception  David  went 
up  to  converse  with  the  Archbishop  of  Westminster  and 
one  or  two  other  bishops  who  were  standing  together.  As 
he  went  he  found  himself  considering  how  much  he  ought 
to  tell  them  of  what  he  knew  of  what  was  going  on.  A 
few  days  afterwards  David  met  the  Bishop  of  Rodez  and 
asked  him  how  the  new  regulations  worked.  '  I  do  not 
know,'  the  Bishop  answered,  '  whether,  or  how  much,  I  can 
tell  you  of  things  in  the  Council.'  David  answered,  '  The 
last  time  I  saw  you  I  was  in  the  same  state  with  regard  to 
you  r  " 

Amidst  all  these  absorbing  new  interests,  or,  to  speak 
more  correctly,  new  developments  of  interests,  and  new 
friends,  Urquhart  forgot  neither  old  interests  nor  old  friends. 
He  was  corresponding  with  Karl  Marx  on  the  financial 
position  of  Europe  and  the  collusion  between  Governments 
and  great  financiers.  He  was  in  close  touch  with  the  Foreign 
Affairs  Committees,  who  had  just  sent  a  petition  to  the 


THE  VATICAN  COUNCIL  271 

Popei  in  which  twenty  Committees  were  represented.  On 
February  19th,  1870,  he  wrote  to  the  Chairman  of  the 
Macclesfield  Committee : 

"  I  have  submitted  to  the  Pope  the  Macclesfield  Address 
through  one  of  the  chief  functionaries.  It  was  accompanied 
by  an  Italian  translation,  which  the  Pope  himself  read  with 
great  care.  He  then  gave  orders  that  it  should  be  referred 
to  the  Commission  of  the  Council  with  a  particular  recom- 
mendation from  himself.  The  petition  of  the  women  of 
Macclesfield  I  presented  myself.  His  Holiness  was  much 
struck  by  it.  I  am  empowered  to  convey  to  them  his 
thanks,  and  can  also  convey  to  them  the  assurance  which 
I  myself  derived  from  the  whole  conversation  that  his  own 
desires  coincide  with  the  tenor  of  the  Petition. 

"  The  Postulate  representing  the  ideas  contained  in  my 
Appeal  to  the  Pope  has  now  been  either  signed  or  approved 
of  by  all  the  prelates  who  have  obtained  the  highest  number 
of  votes  for  the  various  deputations,  as,  for  instance,  the 
Archbishop  of  Saragossa,  the  Bishop  of  Paderborn  (German), 
the  Bishop  of  Jaen  (Spain),  the  Archbishop  of  Tyre 
(Maronite),  the  Patriarchs  of  Constantinople,  Jerusalem 
and  Antioch,  besides  the  Bishop  of  Geneva,  the  Archbishop 
of  Westminster,  etc.,  etc, 

"  The  Oriental  prelates  have  fully  justified  the  expecta- 
tions formed  of  them,  and  those  belonging  to  the  three 
principal  rites  —  Armenians,  Maronites  and  Melchites 
(Greeks) — have  signed  it.  There  are  also  many  names  of 
English  and  Irish  bishops,  and  it  is  believed  that  the  greater 
number  will  support  the  Proposition  although  they  have 
not  signed.  Many  bishops  have  made  it  a  rule  not  to  sign 
anything  out  of  the  Council. 

"  In  giving  you  this  intimation  of  so  marvellous  a  result 
I  have  to  acknowledge  how  far  the  Foreign  Affairs  Com- 
mittees have  contributed  to  it.  Both  by  their  addresses 
to  Eastern  prelates,  their  petitions  to  the  Pope,  and  the 
deputation  to  the  Sultan  the  grounds  were  laid  for  future 
action  as  regards  both  Candia  and  the  Council.  I  enclose 
a  facsimile  of  the  Postulate  as  originally  drawn  up  and 
signed  by  the  Armenian  prelates  which  has  been  deposited 
in  my  hands. 

"  I  have  to  urge  you  to  spare  no  pains  in  obtaining 
petitions.  We  are  now  assured  of  the  concurrence  of  the 
Pope  and  the  support  of  the  most  eminent  members  of  the 

^  See  Appendix, 


272  DAVID  URQUHART 

Roman  Hierarchy  which  has  been  given  by  their  signatures. 
But  still  it  is  but  a  commencement  that  has  been  made, 
and  an  arduous  and  precarious  struggle  has  to  be  gone 
through  before  really  effective  Decrees  are  passed,  and  the 
other  collateral  but  not  less  imperative  measures  are 
adopted. 

"  You  are  at  liberty  to  communicate  confidentially  this 
letter  to  the  other  Committees." 

By  the  end  of  April  Urquhart  felt  that  all  had  been  done 
that  could  be  done.  Besides  his  own  appeal  and  the 
petitions  from  English  working  men  and  women,  the  Holy 
Father  had  received  petitions  from  French  Catholics, 
English  Protestants,  and  English  Catholics,  the  latter  in- 
cluding a  sketch  of  Defourny's  CEuvre  Apostolique,  all  alike 
urging  on  the  Council  the  imperative  necessity  of  once  more 
declaring  to  the  world  the  Law  of  Nations. 

Before  he  left  Rome  he  had  the  joy  of  knowing  that  the 
Postulata  had  been  accepted  by  the  Commission. 

"  Voila  la  position,"  he  writes  to  M.  Le  Play.  "  Les 
Decrets  sur  le  Droit  des  Gens  (je  vous  le  confie  sous  le  secret 
le  plus  absolu)  sont  rediges  et  presentes  unanimement  par 
la  Commission  au  Pape  qui  les  a  envoyes  appuyes  au 
Concile.  .  .  .  On  m'a  dit  que  le  Pape  en  ouvrant  le  paquet 
de  la  Commission  a  dit  '  Ah,  nostro  Urquhart.'  " 

Urquhart  felt  he  could  do  no  more  by  remaining  on  the 
spot.  The  month  of  service  he  had  promised  to  His  Holi- 
ness had  lengthened  out  to  three  when  he  and  his  wife  at 
last  turned  their  backs  on  Rome.  On  May  31st,  Mrs. 
Urquhart  writes  in  her  diary : 

"  Arrived  at  the  chalet.     Thank  God  !" 

We  can  well  imagine  that  the  expression  of  gratitude  was 
no  empty  phrase  when  we  realise  what  it  must  have  cost 
her  to  leave  four  children,  one  a  baby  of  a  year  old,  for 
six  months  to  the  care  of  servants,  in  a  country  not  her 
own.  Only  once  does  she  let  us  see  a  glimpse  of  what  she 
felt.     In  March  she  wrote  to  her  elder  son : 

"  You  say  I  will  lose  all  Frankie's  comic  little  ways. 
My  dearest  Daisy,  you  may  be  sure  we  would  leave  Rome 


THE  VATICAN  COUNCIL  273 

to-morrow  if  we  could  without  doing  wrong.  The  occasion 
is  so  great,  it  is  one  that  cannot  happen  again,  and  what 
we  are  striving  for  is  the  honour  of  God  and  that  the  name 
of  Jesus  may  no  longer  be  put  to  shame  by  what  men  do 
who  call  themselves  Christians.  This  has  been  the  object 
of  your  father's  whole  life.  .  .  .  What  would  I  not  give 
to  be  able  to  see  you  and  the  girls  and  the  little  fellow  if 
only  for  half  an  hour  and  give  you  all  a  good  kiss  !" 

For  a  month  Urquhart  and  his  wife  were  able  to  enjoy 
their  peaceful  retreat  and  their  reunion  with  their  children. 

Then  the  blow  fell. 

On  July  18th  the  Council  overcame  the  opposition  and 
proclaimed  the  Dogma  of  the  Papal  Infallibility. 

The  next  day  it  dispersed  amid  the  first  thunders  of  war, 
proposing  to  meet  again  in  November.  The  day  of  meeting 
again  never  came. 

The  delay  that  Urquhart  had  known  to  be  dangerous 
had  proved  fatal  to  the  fulfilment  of  his  hopes. 

"  Le  delai  etait  un  crime,"  said  Defourny.  "  Mais  les 
criminels  sont  ceux  qui  du  dedans  ou  du  dehors  suscitaient 
le  delai." 

But  once  again  these  criminals  had  proved  too  strong. 

The  Postulata  over  which  Urquhart  spent  himself  so 
freely  still  lie  among  the  papers  to  come  before  the  Council, 
though  the  hands  that  signed  them  are  long  since  cold,  and 
the  tireless  brain  which  conceived  them  has  been  for  forty 
years  at  rest. 


IS 


CHAPTER  XV 

THE  LAST  CHAPTER 

"  Lofty  designs  must  close  in  like  effects: 
Loftily  lying 

Leave  him — still  loftier  than  the  world  suspects 
Living  and  dying." 

The  last  chapter  of  David  Urquhart's  life,  the  story  of  the 
seven  years  of  work  which  remained  after  the  Vatican 
Council,  is  the  most  difficult  of  all  to  write,  not  from  lack, 
but  from  superabundance,  of  material.  So  many  were  the 
threads  he  held  in  his  hands — those  hands  which  "  ought 
to  have  been  the  hands  of  a  sculptor  " — threads  of  inven- 
tion, threads  of  statecraft,  threads  of  social  reform,  the 
dark  and  sinister  threads  of  Russian  intrigue  and  Prussian 
domination,  mingled  always  with  the  golden  strands  of 
Faith  and  Hope  !  So  rapidly  did  the  swift  shuttle  of  his 
thought  dart  backwards  and  forwards  amongst  them, 
making  a  pattern  which,  though  it  may  have  been  clear  to 
the  great  spirits,  the  Angels  of  the  Presence  who  watch 
man's  destiny,  nevertheless  dazzled  the  eyes  and  bewildered 
the  minds  of  mortal  onlookers  ! 

It  seems  best,  therefore,  in  trying  to  trace  the  story  of 
those  remaining  years  to  follow  the  golden  thread  which 
was  in  fact  his  own  guide,  the  thread  of  Hope  that  the 
salvation  and  regeneration  of  the  world  might  still  come 
through  the  Catholic  Church. 

When  Urquhart  withdrew  from  Rome  his  magnetic 
personality,  he  left  behind  him  many  traces  of  his  presence. 

On  the  day  of  his  departure  he  entrusted  to  Mgr.  Franchi 
a  Memorandum  of  "  four  things  to  be  done  "  which  he 
was  to  submit  to  the  Pope. 

One  of  these  was  the  establisJiment  of  diplomatic  rela- 
tions with  the  Sublime  Porte,  and  another  the  appoint- 

274 


THE  LAST  CHAPTER  275 

ment  of  the  Abbe  Defourny  to  the  Diplomatic  College, 
which  was  on  the  point,  as  it  seemed,  of  being  established. 
Urquhart  had  already  drawn  up  for  it  a  scheme  of  Educa- 
tion which  the  General  of  the  Jesuits  had  approved.  It 
was  such  a  scheme  as  would  have  caused  the  conventional 
educationist  to  gasp  with  horror,  and  the  European  diplo- 
matist to  wag  his  head  with  scorn. 

The  n«^ophyte  was  to  be  trained  first  in  cleanliness,  the 
real  cleanliness  of  the  Turkish  bath;  then  in  politeness, 
the  real  courtesy  of  the  East,  to  be  found  in  the  West  only 
in  the  ceremonial  of  the  Catholic  Church.  These  two  un- 
Western  practices  would  immediately  "  set  up  a  barrier 
between  him  and  the  defiling  and  irreverent  spirit  of  the 
Age." 

Then  would  come  the  study  of  the  Law  of  Nations ;  then 
the  study  of  History,  true  History,  not  such  as  is  taught 
in  school  or  class  book,  nor  that  which  has  been  miscalled 
History  for  the  last  three  hundred  years.  Last  of  all  the 
student  would  learn  "  Metaphysics,"  beginning  with  the 
study  of  words  and  their  connection  with  thought  and 
going  on  to  the  connection  between  thoughts  and  ideas  in 
the  minds  of  men  and  nations. 

That  this  scheme  was  not  carried  out  was  due  not  to 
any  idea  among  the  authorities  of  its  impracticability,  but 
to  the  chaos  into  which  Rome  was  thrown  by  the  quick 
march  of  sinister  events. 

Rome,  however,  in  the  midst  of  all  her  woes  did  not 
forget  the  meteoric  Englishman  who  had  flashed  across  her 
skies.  Three  years  after  that  memorable  year  of  the 
Council,  Cardinal  Capalti,  Prefect  of  the  Congregation  of 
Studies,  spoke  with  the  deepest  feeling  of  "  the  good  Mr. 
LTrquhart  had  done  "  during  the  Council.  "  The  seeds  are 
sown,"  he  said,  "  and  will  bear  fruit." 

"  He  was  a  great  help  to  us  during  the  Council,"  said 
Pere  Armellini.  The  Abbe  Sangelgian  spoke  with  tears  in 
his  eyes  after  Urquhart's  death  of  the  great  work  he  had 
done  and  the  astonishment  which  men  had  felt  at  the 
keenness  of  his  prophetic  vision.  Long  afterwards,  in  the 
days  of  stress  which  followed  those  calm   months,   men 


276  DAVID  URQUHART 

remembered  how  he  had  warned  them  that  the  halcyon 
days  of  the  Council  would  end  in  a  storm. 

"  Je  n'avais  pas  la  claire  vision  comme  vous,"  wrote  the 
Bishop  of  Rodez  shortly  before  his  death,  "  mais  je  pensais 
que  les  jours  de  paix  accordes  au  Concile  par  la  Providence 
etaient  comptes;  c'est  pourquoi  j'etais  si  indigne  des  efforts 
de  r  Opposition  pour  entraver  nos  deliberations  dans  un 
but  d'ajournement  indefini." 

In  those  fateful  days  of  1870  how  many  men  must  have 
remembered  his  clear  and  confident  prescience  of  them  ! 

Everywhere  confusion  reigned.  It  was  as  though  the 
very  mention  of  Law  had  roused  to  fury  all  the  demons  of 
lawlessness,  and  had  sent  them  ranging  over  the  earth  to 
do  their  utmost  during  the  time  that  might  remain  to  them. 

The  Patriarch  Hassoun,  who  had  come  to  the  Council 
bearing  the  Vote  of  the  Armenian  Synod,  had  gone  back 
to  his  Patriarchate  to  find  himself  face  to  face  with  f  erious 
trouble :  not  only  was  schism  rending  the  Armenian  Catholic 
body,  but  the  Porte,  in  absolute  contradiction  of  its  hitherto 
unvarying  policy,  had  sided  with  the  dissidents  and  was 
persecuting  the  Catholics.  So  fierce  became  the  storm  that 
Hassoun,  after  vainly  trying  for  a  while  to  stem  it,  found 
himself  driven  into  exile  at  Rome.  He  had  become  too 
dangerous  to  Russia,  said  Urquhart,  since  his  action  in  the 
Synod,  to  be  left  at  large  in  the  East.^ 

The  distressful  state  of  the  Armenian  Catholics  gave  sad 
point  to  the  mild  rebuke  of  the  Pope  when  he  accepted 
Mgr.  Dupanloup's  submission  to  the  Decrees  of  the  Council 
"  notwithstanding  the  harm  you  have  done  in  the  East." 

^  The  dissidents  placed  themselves  under  the  rule  of  the  Civil 
Patriarch,  John  Kapelian,  who  was  recognised  by  the  Porte.  The 
schism  lasted  till  1879,  when  Kapelian  submitted  to  the  Holy  See. 
Hassoun  and  Azarian,  who  had  found  their  exUe  in  Eome  very  bitter, 
and  whose  letters  to  David  Urquhart  during  that  time  would  of 
themselves  make  an  interesting  vohime  of  ecclesiastical  history, 
were  restored  to  their  dignities.  Hassoun  was,  however,  in  1880 
made  the  first  Armenian  Cardinal  by  Leo  XIII,  and  returned  to 
Eome  under  happier  conditions.  Azarian  succeeded  him  in  the 
Patriarchate. 

See  Urquhart's  Le  Patriarch  Hassoun,  written  in  1873  for  the  French 
edition  of  the  Diplomatic  Beview,  for  a  full  account  of  the  schism 
and  its  connection  with  the  Council. 


THE  LAST  CHAPTER  277 

To  the  Church  in  France  even  the  immense  catastrophe 
of  tho  war  had  not  brought  internal  peace.  Gallicanism, 
though  its  wings  were  clipped,  still  survived.  The  internal 
submission  of  many  of  the  Bishops  was  not  so  generous  and 
entire  as  that  of  the  Bishop  of  Orleans:  they  remained 
"  absolutists,"  and  on  their  return  from  the  Council  the 
parish  clergy  underwent  in  many  cases  a  species  of  persecu- 
tion at  their  hands. 

The  Abbe  Defourny  even  during  the  Council  had  warned 
Urquhart  that  because  of  this  spirit  among  the  Bishops  a 
Papal  Proclamation  of  the  Law  of  Nations  would  of  itself 
be  of  little  avail  in  France. 

"  It  will  be  of  no  use,"  he  said,  "  for  the  Pope  in  the 
Council  to  define  anything,  however  clearly  he  does  it,  if 
the  mode  of  its  application  is  left  to  the  judgment  of  the 
Bishops.  The  Galileans  among  them  will  toss  aside,  skilfully 
and  boldly,  rules  of  discipline,  unless  those  rules  are  rigid, 
unless  all  the  i's  are  dotted." 

His  own  Bishop  had  threatened  to  "  break  him  "  on  his 
return  from  the  Council  because  he  had  written  a  treatise 
on  the  dangers  of  Gallicanism.  For  years  he  was  kept  in 
a  state  of  "  esclavage,"  and  was  not  allowed  to  publish 
anything,  not  even  to  write  a  letter  to  a  newspaper  under 
his  own  name. 

In  the  Papal  States,  in  spite  of  many  promises  and  pro- 
fessions to  the  contrary,  convents  and  monasteries  were 
being  emptied  of  nuns  and  monks. 

Rome  itself  was  filled  with  an  undisciplined  mob  which 
had  been  brought  thither  to  swell  the  Plebiscite,  and  was 
given  over  to  licence. 

"  There  have  been  orgies  here,"  writes  Mr.  Monteith 
from  Rome,  at  Christmastide,  1870,  "  not  unlike  those  once 
performed  in  Paris.  Things  impossible  at  Florence  or 
Turin  are  put  on  the  stage  here.  The  songs  one  sees  hawked 
about  are  awful.  The  insecurity  is  very  great.  Very  many 
people  live  entirely  within-doors.  The  delivery  of  bread 
has  been  irregular  from  the  necessity  of  guarding  it,  two 
or  three  stout  fellows  armed  with  sticks  not  always  proving 
sufficient.  The  address  of  the  new  Rector  of  the  Roman 
College  has  done  some  good,  for  it  was  distinctly  atheistic. 


278  DAVID  URQUHART 

In  fact  the  reaction  and  disillusionment  is  remarkable. 
De  Rossi  told  me  a  good  deal.  An  acquaintance  of  his 
who  carried  the  banner  of  the  so-called  P — • —  of  the  Leonine 
City  to  the  Campidoglio  came  to  him  the  other  day  with 
open  remorse,  exclaiming  that  he  would  now  '  gladly  invite 
the  Turks  to  drive  out  the  Italians.'  " 

But  at  the  Vatican  itself  all  was  different.  It  was  "  like 
a  house  of  pilgrimage,"  said  Monteith.  Pius  IX.  was  full 
of  sweetness  and  courage  and  "  forgiveness,"  and  the 
cardinals,  who  dared  not  be  seen  in  their  official  dress  in 
the  streets,  but  who  "  came  to  the  Vatican  in  shabby 
vehicles,  covered  with  old  black  cloaks  and  changed  in  the 
Ante-Camera,"  took  their  tone  from  him.  Monteith  could 
not  speak  without  tears  of  his  Christmas  audience  with  the 
Pope,  nor  of  the  sorrow  and  desolation  of  that  Christmas- 
time in  the  Eternal  City,  where  no  Midnight  Masses  were 
said  and  no  "  cannon  sounded  at  dawn  from  Sant  Angelo." 
"  Perhaps,"  he  said,  "  they  will  never  be  heard  again  during 
our  time." 

The  Temporal  Power  had  gone,  the  Papal  States  had 
gone;  the  Pope  was  no  longer  a  temporal  Sovereign,  his 
Government  equal  in  rank,  by  the  Law  of  Nations,  to  the 
Government  of  any  Power  in  Europe.  He  was  a  prisoner 
in  the  Vatican,  not  knowing  from  day  to  day  what  might 
befall. 

The  time  when  as  a  Sovereign  Power  he  could  protest 
against  the  ill-doings  of  his  fellow  Sovereigns  was  gone  by, 
frittered  away  by  a  "  delay  which  was  a  crime." 

What,  then,  was  left  ?  Urquhart,  whose  disappointment 
at  the  fatal  blow  had  been  more  bitter  than  that  of  anyone 
else,  said  that  everything  that  mattered  was  left. 

"  The  power  which  resides  in  the  Pope  is  not  so  much 
as  touched  by  the  crimes  of  the  Duke  of  Savoy  and  the 
King  of  Sardinia." 

He  absolutely  refused  to  admit  that  the  high  hopes  he  had 
built  on  the  Papacy  had  come  to  nothing.  His  belief  in  the 
Pope  was  unbounded. 

"  The  Pope  has  done  everything  well — no  less  and  no 
more  than  he  ought  to  have  done." 


THE  LAST  CHAPTER  279 

He  rafu^ed  to  admit  that  anything  had  gone  whose  loss 
was  irreparable  or  even  material.  The  Temporal  Power 
had  gone;  let  it  go:  perhaps  all  the  Sovereignties  in  the 
world  would  go. 

"  We  are,"  he  said,  "  perhaps  but  one  step  nearer  to 
reality  by  its  going.  The  CathoHc  Community  still  exists ; 
with  knowledge  and  science  it  will  be  irresistible,  all  the 
more  irresistible  because  it  has  at  last  realised,  or  it  has 
at  least  such  an  opportunity  as  it  never  had  before  of 
realising,  what  it  has  to  do  and  what  to  fight. 

"  Christianity  rose  into  the  world  out  of  the  Catacombs. 
Its  path  was  in  blood,  its  own  blood.  So  may  it  be  with 
the  second  Resurrection  of  Christianity." 

If  men  cared  enough  for  Liberty  and  Justice  that  second 
Resurrection  was  assured  beyond  a  doubt.  But  did  they  ? 
On  the  answer  to  that  question  must  depend  the  future  of  the 
Church,  whether  it  would  sink  into  paganism  or  would  live. 

So  he  took  up  again  the  office  of  teacher  which  he  had 
hoped  to  have  left  at  the  Council  for  ever  in  the  hands  of 
the  Church. 

"  I  do  it,"  he  said  to  one  who  thought  he  took  too  much 
upon  himself,  "  for  the  same  reason  for  which  I  have  worked 
all  my  life,  because  there  is  no  one  else  to  do  it."  "  Si 
ceux  que  vous  appelez  croyants  et  Catholiques  compre- 
naient  et  faisaient  leur  devoir,"  he  wrote  to  Pere  Roh, 
"  il  y  aurait  presomption  de  ma  part  d'ouvrir  la  bouche." 

Because  there  was  no  one  else  to  do  it,  both  by  voice 
and  pen  he  tried  to  supply  the  lack.  Much  of  what  he 
wrote  at  this  time  is  more  concise  and  more  vigorous  than 
any  of  his  earlier  work.  Of  his  English  writing  perhaps 
the  best  specimen  is  the  Four  Wars  of  the  French  Revolution. 
Like  a  good  deal  of  his  work  it  is  reminiscent,  and  his 
reminiscences  are  like  the  survey  of  a  traveller  looking  from 
a  mountain  height  over  the  country  he  has  painfully  and 
toilsomely  traversed. 

He  wrote  much  in  French;  it  was  indeed  in  French  that 
he  wrote  one  of  his  most  outstanding  works,  La  Desolation 
de  la  Chretiente.  It  made  a  great  impression.  Of  it 
M.  Le  Play  said : — 


280  DAVID  URQUHART 

"  J'ai  lu  et  je  relis  avec  uiie  satisfaction  que  je  ne  saurais 
vous  exprimer  La  Desolation  de  la  Chretiente.  Vous  avez 
reussi  beaucoup  mieux  que  dans  vos  autres  ouvrages  a 
exprimer  votre  pensee;  cette  pensee  devient  chaque  jour 
plus  nette  et  je  crois  remarquer  que  vous  avez  ete  mieux 
servi  par  la  langue  de  Descartes  que  vous  ne  I'avez  ete 
par  votre  langue  maternelle." 

The  Desolation  was  a  short  treatise  which  embodied 
for  the  rest  of  the  world  the  teaching  he  had  mapped  out 
for  the  Diplomatic  College.  Its  keynote  is:  "  Ce  que 
I'Europeen  modern  croit  est  probablement  faux,  et  ce  qu'il 
dit  impossible  est  la  chose  a  tenter  et  a  accomplir  par  un 
coeur  droit. "^ 

The  plan  of  the  work  is  something  like  this :  In  the  mind 
of  the  modern  European  right  and  wrong  have  changed 
places.  Society  is  upside  down.  Thought  is  completely 
houleverse.  Men  pride  themselves  upon  having  grasped 
the  deep  truths  of  life  and  religion  when  they  have  merely 
got  hold  of  a  few  catchwords  which  they  think  stand  ior 
them. 

The  human  mind  is  so  constituted  that  it  is  dependent 
on  language  as  a  vehicle  for  ideas ;  hence  the  great  necessity 
for  guarding  the  purity  and  accuracy  of  language.  But 
in  Europe,  and  particularly  in  England,  language  has  become 
vague,  and  loose,  and  full  of  hybrid,  abstract  words;  it  is 
unfit  for  the  conveyance  of  accurate  and  sound  thought. 

Such  a  condition  of  language  makes  it  impossible  for  a 
man  to  perceive  its  harm  to  himself  since  it  cuts  him  off 
from  accurate  and  coherent  thought  and  thereby  from  clear 
mental  sight.  There  is  one  way  to  overcome  this,  and  only 
one,  and  that  is  by  learning  a  language  still  unspoilt.  Such 
a  language  Urquhart  found  in  Turkish.  Nothing  showed 
him  more  clearly  the  meaninglessness  of  European  abstract 
ideas  than  an  attempt  to  render  them  intelligible  to  a  Turk 
in  his  own  language. 

Language,  however,  is  not  the  only  means  of  communica- 
tion  between   human   beings;    another   and   one   not   less 

^  The  text  whicli  was  given  liim  by  the  ro.^c  in  liia  garden  !  See 
Chapter  XI. 


THE  LAST  CHAPTER  2Sl 

potent  for  good  or  evil  is  to  bo  found  in  a  man's  bearing 
towards  liis  fellows,  whieh  is  speech  in  action.  Ill-bearing 
means  loss  of  dignity,  familiarity,  insolence;  it  is  the  lan- 
guage of  injustice,  want  of  love,  selfishness,  cruelty  and  in 
the  last  resort,  murder,  bloodshed,  and  wars  of  contpiest 
and  rapine. 

A  riglit  bearing  or  courtesy  means  that  a  man  retains 
liis  own  dignity  and  respects  that  of  others;  it  is  the  lan- 
guage of  love  and  justice,  of  national  and  intei'national 
Peace,  Law  and  Liberty. 

The  "  free  and  easy  "  manners  of  Europeans  are  bad 
because  they  are  built  either  on  insincerity  or  on  want  of 
honour  and  of  dignity.  In  European  countries  the  Catholic 
Church  alone  inculcates  real  courtesy.  Does  anyone  in 
England  ever  see  a  schoolboy  bow  as  he  stands  aside  for 
his  father  to  pass  or  as  he  hands  his  mother  some  article 
of  domestic  use  ?  Yet  he  does  both  as  he  serves  the  priest 
in  the  sanctuary.  Urquhart  saw  the  Eastern  boy  in  his 
home  perform  the  simplest  acts  with  the  courtesy  of  a 
prince,  and  he  nearly  wept  with  joy  when  ho  recognised,  in 
the  action  of  a  young  man  kissing  tlie  foot  of  the  Pope's 
statue  in  a  Catholic  Church  and  laying  on  it  his  forehead, 
the  "  temena  "  or  greeting  which  he  had  so  often  seen  in 
the  East  given  by  the  young  to  their  elders. 

It  is  on  these  two  things,  spoken  language  and  the  bearing 
of  men  to  each  other,  Urquhart  maintained,  that  human 
society  rests. 

The  desolation  of  Christianity  lies  in  this,  that  in  Christian 
countries  these  two  bases  are  crumbling  away.  They  lay 
four  square  beneath  it  in  the  past.  They  were  the  stability 
of  the  ancient  kingdoms  of  the  East.  To  tliem  Turk  and 
Persian,  Japanese,  Chinese,  and  other  ancient  civilisations 
owe  their  extraordinary  tenacity  of  life.  Such  nations 
Urquhart  was  not  afraid  to  hold  up  for  an  example  to 
Christians,  as  a  greater  than  he,  he  said,  was  not  afraid  to 
hold  up  the  heathen  as  an  example  to  tiio  r(;ligious  people 
of  His  own  time. 

Modern  Society  is  rotten  and  crumbling  away  because  it 
is  based  on  rotten  and  false  foundations  instciad  of  the  true 


282  DAVID  URQUHART 

and  solid  foundations  of  earlier  times.  It  is  for  the  Catholic 
Church  not  to  pride  herself  upon  her  superiority  to  pagans, 
but  to  learn  lessons  of  them  where  she  can,  and  boldly  to 
point  out  to  the  world  its  evils  and  the  true  reasons  for 
them,  its  false  thought  and  the  immoral  actions  which 
spring  from  it.  Of  these  evils  the  greatest  is  War,  modern 
War,  which  is  murder. 

War  in  ancient  days,  terrible  and  devastating  as  it  was, 
was  like  one  of  the  forces  of  Nature;  it  came  like  an  earth- 
quake, without  hurt  to  the  moral  nature  of  man,  and  it  came 
from  without,  from  the  conquest  of  some  mighty  king,  from 
the  invasion  of  barbarian  or  savage;  it  was  not,  as  it  is 
to-day,  the  result  of  internal  degeneration. 

Nations  go  to  war  to-day,  not  to  punish  wrong-doing,  not 
even  to  make  a  larger  place  for  themselves  when  their  own 
becomes  too  strait.  It  is  in  fact  no  longer  the  nation  that 
goes  to  war;  it  is  a  small  party  in  the  nation  which,  for  its 
own  advantage,  careless  of  others'  good,  heedless  of  the 
rights  of  all,  sets  the  mighty  ball  a-rolling.^  And  men  have 
ceased  to  respect  the  goods  of  other  men  and  the  rights  of 
other  nations  because  they  first  ceased  to  respect  the  human 
dignity  of  others,  because  for  respect  is  substituted  famili- 
arity, for  courtesy  if  not  rudeness,  at  least  "  free  and  easy 


manners." 


With  that  loss  of  respect,  of  courtesy,  of  human  dignity, 
has  come  the  drawing  apart  of  Society  into  classes,  so  that 
now  men  live  side  by  side  as  strangers,  without  respect,  with- 
out consideration,  not  to  speak  of  love,  for  one  another. 

"  An  English  writer  of  the  last  century,"  says  Urquhart, 
"  Mr.  Cobbett,  remarked  that  the  change  for  the  worse  in 
England  took  place  when  farm  labourers  no  longer  sat  down 
at  the  table  of  their  masters.  I  would  go  further  and  say 
that  decadence  began  when  the  vassal  and  the  serf  no 
longer  ate  at  the  table  of  the  lord.  Once  when  I  was  at 
such  a  table  in  the  East,  with  a  Prince  and  a  Patriarch  at 
one  end  and  a  beggar  at  the  other,  I  ordered  my  English 
servant  to  seat  himself  down  too.     He  refused,  giving  as 

^  See  Arthur  Penty,  Guilds  and  the  Social  Crisis,  where  he  ascribes 
the  Great  War  of  1914  to  the  rottenness  of  the  economic  condition  of 
the  whole  world — particularly  of  Germany. 


THE  LAST  CHAPTER  283 

his  reason  that  he  could  not  serve  a  master  whom  he  could 
not  respect,  and  he  could  not  respect  me  if  he  sat  down 
to  table  with  me.  Whereupon  I  sent  him  away,  and  I 
hope  he  took  his  place  in  his  own  rank. 

"  If  that  man  had  kissed  my  hand  after  dinner  he  would 
not  have  ceased  to  respect  his  master  for  dining  with  him ; 
indeed,  so  to  have  dined  would  have  increased  both  his 
respect  and  his  affection." 

When  Society  is  based  on  mutual  respect  there  will  be 
revolt  against  wrong,  but  not  Revolution,  as  Revolution  is 
understood  in  Europe  to-day.  If  their  rulers  break  the 
Law  men  will  enforce  it  against  them,  but  the  Law  once 
enforced,  they  will  revert  to  old  relationship.  They  will 
not  say,  "  Our  King  is  a  tyrant,  we  will  have  a  Republic." 
They  will  say,  "  Our  King  breaks  the  Law;  it  is  for  us  to 
see  that  he  observes  it." 

More  than  this  and  they  would  be  themselves  law- 
breakers. 

The  modern  State  was  in  no  way  Urquhart's  idea  of  what 
a  State  should  be  under  the  rule  of  the  Catholic  Church. 
She  could  only  be  content  with  it  if  she  ignored  both  her 
heritage  and  her  mission.  It  would  only  be  in  a  State 
where  Truth  and  Respect  once  more  reigned  that  she  could 
rise  to  her  full  stature  of  dignity  and  beauty.  It  would 
only  be  when  all  the  world  consisted  of  such  States  that  her 
work  for  the  world  would  be  done. 

The  Church  could  not  go  about  preaching  dogmatic 
theology  in  season  and  out  of  season  in  such  a  world  as 
then  existed,  but  she  could,  like  John  the  Baptist,  cry 
aloud  "  It  is  not  lawful,"  when  right  was  outraged  and 
wrong  was  triumphant.  There  she  had  a  weapon  both 
against  judicial  perversion  and  religious  infidelity. 

Such  is,  in  brief,  the  theme  of  La  Desolation  de  la 
Chretiente.  It  was  much  appreciated  by  Catholics  every- 
where. The  Pope  sjnt,  through  the  Archbishop  of  West- 
minster, a  brief,  thanking  Urquhart  for  it. 

"  David  Urquhart,  Protestant  de  nom  et  Catholique  de 
doctrine,"  says  the  author  of  a  work  on  the  Council  in 
quoting  a  long  passage  from  it  in  his  Preface. 


284  BAVm  URQUHART 

"  C'est  le  fait  d'un  honnete  homme,"  says  Pere  Roh,i 
"  qui  nous  aime  et  qui  nous  estime." 

"  Monsieur  Urquhart,"  said  the  Bishop  of  Geneva,  speak- 
ing to  the  Pope  of  the  book,  "  nous  prepare  une  atmosphere 
a  travers  de  laquelle  la  lumiere  peut  se  faire  jour." 

And  His  HoUness  answered:  "  L'aurore  viendra." 

"  Je  constate,"  said  M.  Le  Play,  "  de  plus  en  plus  que 
nous  venons  I'un  et  1' autre  de  1' Orient.  C'est  la  notre 
parente.  C'est  ce  qui  fait  que  beaucoup  de  gens  nous  appellent 
'  retrogrades.'  Le  fait  est  vrai  et  I'appelation  juste.  Seule- 
ment  ce  qui  est  dans  leur  esprit  une  critique  doit  etre  un 
eloge." 

The  writing  of  the  book  and  the  reception  which  it  received 
revived  in  Urquhart  all  the  old  courage  and  fire  which  the 
fiasco  of  the  Council  had  damped.  They  were  indeed 
needed,  for  the  political  situation,  though  not  hopeless,  was 
desperate. 

The  letters  of  his  friend  Baron  Prokesch,^  Austrian 
Ambassador  in  Constantinople,  grew  more  and  more 
depressing. 

The  Porte,  which  had  hitherto  preserved  much  of  its 
Eastern  character,  was  fast  becoming  entangled  in  European 
politics,  and  Turkey,  thanks  to  the  introduction  of  European 
financial  methods,  was  on  the  verge  of  bankruptcy. 

^  Pere  Roh  wrote  of  it  to  Mrs.  Urquhart: 

"  Mannheim, 

"27  3Iars,  1871. 

"Madame, 

"  Quoique  je  sois  bien  occupe  j'ai  aclieve  la  lecture  tres  atten- 
tive de  r admirable  travail  de  M.  votre  inari.  C'est  uu  ouvrage  que 
je  re-lirai  et  que  je  mediterai  souvent.  J'eprouve  un  profond  regret 
et  une  profoude  liuiniliation  d'etre  arriv6  a  I'age  de  soixaute  ans 
ignorant  tant  de  choses  si  nccessaires  et  si  simples,  apres  tant  d'etudes. 
Si  j'avais  su  tout  cola,  il  y  a  30-40  ans  mon  action  en  classes  et  a 
Teglisc  cut  ete  tout  autre.  C'est  bien  tard  pour  moi  que  de  com- 
nicncer,  niais  ce  n'est  pas  trop  tard  pour  bien  d'autres,  et  je  ferai 
mon  possible,  afm  qu'ils  fassent  mieux  que  moi.  Je  ra'appliquerai 
a  [aire  connaitre  en  AUemagne  cette  admirable  brochure,  et  je  vous 
supplie  de  lui  procurer  de  votre  part  la  plus  graude  publicit6  possible." 

2  Urquhart  liad  been  intimate  with  Baron  Prokesch  through  the 
whole  oi  his  varied  political  career.  In  1839  he  was  Minister  Pleni- 
potentiary at  Athens,  in  1852  he  was  President  of  the  CTcrmanic 
Diet  at  Frankfort.  His  Memoirs  are  full  of  interest,  showing  how 
deeply  he  shared  Urquhart's  feelings  on  the  Russian  question. 


THE  LAST  CHAPTER  285 

One  ray  of  hope  he  saw.  His  desire  for  the  opening  of 
diplomatic  relations  between  Rome  and  the  Sublime  Porte 
had  been  fulfilled  by  the  despatch  of  Mgr.  Franchi  to 
Constantinople  as  Papal  Envoy,  to  try  and  disentangle  the 
knot  of  the  Armenian  schism.  His  negotiations  were,  up 
to  a  certain  point,  successful,  and  the  danger  of  rupture 
which  would  have  been  disastrous  to  Catholics  in  the 
Ottoman  Empire  was  averted. i 

It  is  curious  to  read  from  the  letters  of  this  time  that  it 
was  to  the  Grand  Vizier,  Aali  Pasha,  that  the  Comte  de 
Breda  betook  himself  after  the  disastrous  defeat  of  Sedan 
with  the  proposition  that  Turkey  should  help  to  bring 
about  a  combination  of  the  weaker  States  in  a  Ligue  des 
Faibles  against  the  haughtiness  and  insolence  of  the  great 

1  Mgr.  Franchi  wrote  to  Urquliart  from  Constantinople: 

"  J'ai  re§u  avec  uu  grand  plaisir  votre  aimable  lettre  du  12 
courant,  et  je  vous  reniercie  des  bienveUIantes  paroles  que  vous 
avez  vonlu  exprimer  a  mon  egard.  Du  moment  que  j'ai  ete  nomm6 
par  le  Saint  P6re  pour  remplir  cette  importante  mission  a  Constan- 
tinople, i'ai  pense  tout  de  suite  a  votre  honorable  personne. 
J'etais  tres  sur  que  vous  en  auriez  eprouve  une  joie  tout  particuliere 
et  que  vous  m'auriez  accompagn6  avec  vos  voeux  s'il  vous  n'etait 
pas  possible  de  me  faire  une  visite.  Oh  !  comme  tout  ce  qui  se 
I)asse  ici  me  rappelle  les  discours  que  nous  avons  faits  tant  de  iois 
sur  rOrient  et  sur  les  grands  int6rets  de  la  religion  Catholique  ! 

"  Je  crois,  mon  ami,  que  ma  mission  a  fait  quelque  chose  de  bien. 
L'accord  avec  la  Porte  est  presqu'  a  sa  fin.  La  participation  des 
laiques  dans  Telectiou  des  Eveques  est  admise  dans  le  sens  que 
vous  aviez  indique,  c'est  a  dire  au  bon  temoignage  sur  les  qualit^s 
des  candidats.  Des  autres  points  sont  arretes  sur  les  garanties 
de  la  fidelite  relativement  aux  elus  a  la  dignite  episcopale,  a  1' ad  minis- 
tration des  biens,  conservation  des  rites  et  des  liturgies,  etc.  De 
sorte  que  j'espere  d'avoir  tout  fini  dans  le  courant  du  mois  prochain. 
J'ai  assists  bier  soir  au  diner  donne  par  le  Grand  Vizir  dans  rocca- 
sion  de  I'anniversaire  de  I'avenement  au  trone  du  Sultan,  et  j'etais 
place  a  la  droite  de  ]\Iehmed  Kiupresti  Pacha,  qui  m'a  dit  d'avoir 
re9U  votre  lettre,  et  qui  m'a  promis  de  m'envoyer  la  brochuie  de 
laquelle  vous  me  parlez. 

"  Nous  parlous  toujours  de  vous  avec  le  Baron  de  Prokesch  et 
nous  nous  rapellons  toujours  vos  grands  services  rendus  en  g6n^ri^l 
a  la  soci^te,  et  en  particulier  a  la  Turquie.  Pour  ce  qui  conceDie 
ma  personne  je  suis  tres  content  d'avoir  visits  I'Orient,  et  je  suis 
convaincu  que  si  nous  aurions  eu  une  id6e  plus  exacte  des  Mussulmans 
et  de  leurs  int6rets  nous  aurions  pu  en  profiter  d'avantage. 

"  Je  vous  prie  de  presenter  mes  compliments  a  votre  femme,  et 
d'agreer  en  meme  temps  1' assurance  de  ma  haute  estime  et  la  con- 
sideration avec  laquelle  je  suis  votre  devone  ami. 

"  (Sign6)  Alexandre, 
"  Archeveque  de  Thessalonique." 


286  DAVID  URQUHART 

Etats-Dieu  of  Prussia  and  Russia.  The  Grand  Vizier  was 
so  impressed  with  his  visit,  and  apparently  so  much  in- 
terested in  the  scheme,  that  it  was  the  talk  of  all  Con- 
stantinople how  he  had  kept  waiting  for  twenty  minutes 
the  Sheikh-ul-Islam,  who  was  announced  during  their 
interview  ! 

England  was  rejoicing  over  the  victory  of  Prussia,  but 
Urquhart  knew  it,  and  proclaimed  it  to  be  a  disaster  for 
the  world.  In  spite  of  his  hearty  contempt  for  and  dislike 
of  Louis  Napoleon,  he  was  absolutely  convinced  that  the 
whole  war  had  been  engineered  by  Prussia,  at  the  instiga- 
tion, and  with  the  co-operation,  of  Russia.  A  declaration 
of  the  Law  of  Nations  by  the  Council  might  have  prevented 
it,  not  only  because  of  the  effect  it  would  have  had  on 
the  German  Catholic  party,  but  because  the  only  thing 
which  Russia  feared  was  the  establishment  of  Law  and 
Order  on  a  footing  which  promised  permanence.  That 
hope  was  as  yet  unfulfilled,  but  it  was  Urquhart's  goal  in 
all  his  future  work. 

"  The  Pope,  when  he  said  '  I  can  do  nothing  unless  I 
am  moved  from  without,'  gave  me,"  he  was  wont  to  say, 
"  my  mission — to  be  always  on  guard,  that  when  the 
opportunity  for  action  comes  I  may  seize  it  for  him." 

For  that  opportunity  he  never  ceased  to  watch.  He 
threw  himself  into  any  work  that  might  bear  within  it 
seeds  of  hope,  were  it  the  CEuvre  Apostolique  of  the  Abbe 
Defourny,  or  the  Union  de  la  Paix  Sociale  of  Le  Play. 

The  CEuvre  Apostolique  was  a  religious  society  which 
he  had  directly  inspired,  though  he  did  not  altogether 
approve  of  the  form  it  had  taken.  The  Abbe  Defourny 
and  Pere  Jullion  were  its  two  promoters.  Its  basis  was  a 
purely  religious  one,  and  its  aim  was  to  re-establish  courtesy 
in  the  family  and  justice  in  the  State. 

It  was  another  and  practical  method  of  "  preparing  the 
occasion  "  for  the  Pope.  Defourny  was  convinced  that  it 
would  be  of  no  use  even  were  the  Pope  to  proclaim  the 
Law  of  Nations  from  the  Vatican  unless  the  Church  both 
desired  that  Law  and  was  prepared  both  in  spirit  and  in 
knowledge  to  carry  it  out.     It  was  to  quicken  the  spirit 


THE  LAST  CHAPTER  287 

and  supply  the  knowledge  by  instruction  both  to  children 
and  their  elders  that  the  CEuvre  Apostoliqtie  was  founded. 
It  met  at  first  with  much  opposition  from  the  ecclesiastical 
authorities,  and  its  final  approval  by  the  Holy  See  was 
due  to  Urquhart  himself.  When  Defourny  went  to  Rome 
in  1875  for  the  Jubilee,  Urquhart  gave  him  a  letter  to  his 
old  friend,  Mgr.,  now  Cardinal,  Franchi,  begging  his  good 
offices  for  the  (Euvre  with  the  Holy  Father.  So  success- 
ful were  those  offices  that  Defourny  returned  from  Rome 
with  great  joy,  his  work  approved  and  an  open  course 
before  him. 

Of  another  nature  was  the  Union  de  la  Paix  Socials  of 
M.  Le  Play.  It  was,  as  its  name  indicates,  an  association 
to  promote  internal  union  within  the  French  nation.  But 
M.  Le  Play  was  too  much  one  in  mind  with  Urquhart  not 
to  see  that  International  Justice  was  the  only  basis  of  such 
union.  Therefore  the  re-establishment  of  the  Law  of 
Nations  took  the  first  place  in  the  work  of  the  Union  de 
la  Paix  Sociale. 

Le  Play  had  collected  around  him  many  disciples  who 
thus  became  familiar  with  Urquhart  and  his  work,  and 
his  sphere  of  influence  steadily  widened  in  France.  Learned 
Societies  like  those  of  Arras  and  Lille  and  Grenoble,  asked 
for  monographs  from  himself  and  Defourny,  whose  reputa- 
tion as  a  Canonist  had  steadily  grown  through  years  of 
plodding  work. 

Pere  Ramiere  introduced  him  to  a  section  of  the  most 
thoughtful  and  learned  Catholic  public  at  the  time,  by 
writing  four  articles  on  the  "  Restauration  du  Droit  des 
Gens  "  in  The  Ehides,  the  French  Jesuit  Review  of  which 
he  was  afterwards  editor.  The  articles  are  a  complete 
exposition  of  Urquhart's  work.  The  author  describes 
enthusiastically  the  "  ecoles  du  Droit  des  Gens,"  as  he 
calls  the  Foreign  Affairs  Committees,  and  is  most  sympa- 
thetic and  far-sighted  in  the  view  he  takes  of  Urquhart's 
life  and  plans  and  visions  for  the  future.  This  is  the  more 
creditable  to  his  large-mindedness  because  he  was  one  of 
those  many  Catholics  who  could  not  understand  the  position 
of  a  man  so  thoroughly  at  one  as  Urquhart  was  with  Catholic 


288  DAVID  URQUHART 

morality  who  yet  held  aloof  from  the  Catholic  Church. 
Urquhart  must  indeed  have  been  a  mystery  to  many  of  the 
devout  Catholics  he  numbered  among  his  friends.  They 
saw  his  overwhelming  faith  in  the  Church  and  the  deep 
truth  and  rectitude  of  his  character  and  said:  "  This  man 
is  not  far  from  the  Kingdom  of  Heaven;  a  few  more  steps 
will  see  him  there."  And  they  were  grievously  disappointed 
when  those  few  more  steps  were  never  taken. 

There  were  others,  however,  who  seemed  to  have  realised 
that  God  was  leading  on  His  servant  by  ways  they  knew 
not.  So  they  were  silent.  The  Holy  Father  never  spoke 
a  word  to  him  of  conversion.  And  of  the  Pope  Urquhart 
said:  '"  Cast  lui  dont  le  concours  m'est  le  plus  necessaire." 

It  was  as  though  between  them  there  was  a  deep  and 
unspoken  bond. 

So  with  regard  to  others,  and  these  some  of  those  most 
eminent  Catholic  ecclesiastics.  They  were  never  troubled 
about  Urquhart's  non-adherence  to  the  Church.  Probably 
the  saintly  Pere  Aymond  expressed  their  feelings  when  he 
said,  "  A  man  must  be  a  man  before  he  is  a  Christian." 

To  some,  however,  Urquhart's  position  was  a  stumbling- 
block.  "  When  they  find  that  you  do  not  adhere  to  the 
Church,"  said  Pere  Ramiere,  "  the  Catholics  who  now 
believe  in  your  work  will  forsake  you." 

He,  like  many  others,  never  understood  how  small  a 
part  intellectual  assent  to  dogma  had  in  Urquhart's  scheme 
of  religion.  That  which  to  them  was  most  important 
seemed  to  him  quite  secondary.  In  spite  of  Jeremy 
Bentham's  influence  on  his  early  life,  intellectual  truth 
was  to  him  only  a  part  of  truth.  Moral  truth  was  that 
by  which  men  lived  and  the  world  would  be  saved.  No 
dogmatic  truth  waS  of  value  to  him  unless  it  could  be 
translated  into  action,  and  action  of  a  kind  which  the  world 
needed.  Therefore  those  in  whose  eyes  intellectual  assent 
to  the  Faith  was  so  important  as  to  obscure  the  value  of 
moral  assent  failed  altogether  or  in  part  to  understand 
him.  Catholics,  however,  on  the  whole  misunderstood  him 
less  than  most  other  religious  people.  For  to  a  Catholic, 
as  to  Urquhart,  salvation  without  works  was  impossible. 


THE  LAST  CHAPTER  289 

The  point  of  divergence  lay  in  the  position  assigned  to 
works ;  Urquhart  put  them  first. 

He  said,  "  Let  the  child  be  taught  respect  and  courtesy, 
let  the  man  realise  the  rights  and  dignity  of  his  fellow-men, 
let  the  nations  be  made  up  of  such  men  as  this  and  they 
will  be  in  a  position  to  be  Christians  and  Catholics.  At 
present  they  cannot  be  either.  '  If  any  man  will  do  the 
will  of  God  he  shall  know  of  the  doctrine.'  " 

Many  Cathohcs  said,  "Let  the  nations  come  back  to  God  and 
the  Church  and  they  will  know  how  to  treat  their  brethren." 

But  he  answered,  "  Catholics  and  Protestants  are  alike 
in  their  disregard  of  Law  and  Justice.  '  If  a  man  love  not 
his  brother  whom  he  hath  seen,  how  can  he  love  God  whom 
he  hath  not  seen  ?'  "  A  barren  faith  will  plunge  the  world 
into  a  darker  infidelity  than  it  knows  now.  But  Justice 
will  lead  men  towards  the  Light.  He  pointed  to  men  whom 
the  Foreign  Affairs  Committees  had  rescued  from  secu- 
larism and  atheism ;  to  Singleton,  for  instance,  the  quondam 
leader  of  a  Secularist  Society  who,  in  spite  of  everything 
against  him,  had  lately  become  a  Catholic. 

There  is  no  doubt  but  that  Urquhart  grew  more  and  more 
convinced  that  the  Catholic  Church  was  the  only  body  in 
the  world  where  religion  was  to  be  found,  and  that,  had 
he  been  convinced  of  the  necessity  of  adhering  to  any 
religious  community,  he  would  have  become  a  Catholic; 
but  of  this  he  never  was  convinced.  Absolute  Justice  was 
the  only  sheer  moral  necessity  in  the  world,  according  to 
the  vision  of  his  youth.  Those  who  had  not  seen  the  vision 
could  not  see  what  he  followed. 

Urquhart's  last  and  not  least  important  step  to  translate 
his  truth  into  action  was  his  endeavour  to  put  before  France 
the  idea  of  a  National  Tribunal,  or  Council,  for  determining 
causes  of  war.  His  idea  was  that,  as  in  the  best  days  of 
Rome,  Justice  was  safeguarded  by  placing  in  the  hands  of 
the  College  of  Fetiales  the  right  of  decision  in  questions 
involving  peace  and  war,  so  in  the  Europe  of  his  day  such 
decision  should  be  taken  out  of  the  hands  of  the  Bureau- 
cracies which  modern  Governments  had  become,  and 
entrusted  to  a  body  of  men  which  should  be  able  to  judgo 

10 


290  DAVID  URQUHART 

as  impartially  as  a  civil  tribunal  in  cases  of  civil  crime. 
For  war  is  only  justifiable  if  it  is  the  judicial  carrying  out 
of  a  judicial  sentence.  He  proposed  this  idea  to  the  French 
Assembly,  thinking  that  France,  suffering  as  she  was  from 
the  war  in  which  she  had  just  been  engaged,  might  count 
some  among  her  statesmen  who  could  see  the  advantage  of 
this  proposal.  The  proposal,  though  it  was  initiated  by 
himself,  was  introduced  by  a  Deputation  from  the  English 
Working  Men's  Committees  to  the  French  Assembly,  through 
one  of  its  Commissions  on  the  state  of  the  working  classes. 
The  Due  de  Pasquier  was  in  the  Chair,  and  the  Deputation 
was  introduced  by  M.  Le  Play,  a  French  Deputy,  M.  Lucien 
Brun,  and  the  Abbe  Def ourny.  The  Comte  d'Harcourt  acted 
as  interpreter. 

"  The  remarkable  thing  was,"  says  Mrs.  Urquhart,  "  that 
at  first  the  French  Deputies  could  not  understand  what  it 
was  all  about.  They  imagined  that  the  Deputation  were 
workmen  come  to  state  their  grievances  as  working  men. 
They  insisted  on  asking  them  if  they  had  not  something 
to  say  about  their  wages,  their  hours  of  work,  savings  banks, 
etc.  ...  It  was  only,  as  one  after  another  got  up,  and 
spoke  almost  with  indignation  at  the  idea  that  they  were 
only  occupied  with  class  interests,  that  the  notion  of  some- 
thing else  dawned  upon  the  minds  of  the  French  gentlemen. 
Then  they  wanted  to  put  the  idea  of  a  Tribunal  for  war 
aside,  saying :  '  It  is  a  grand  idea,  but  it  has  nothing  to  say 
to  our  objects.'  On  this,  the  men  spoke  again,  and  one, 
David  Rule,  in  particular,  most  effectually,  and  told  them 
that,  while  they  spoke  not  as  working  men,  solely,  and  not 
as  forming  a  class  with  different  interests  from  the  rest  ot 
the  nation,  that  what  they  desired  to  effect  did  concern 
them  and  all  working  men  in  all  countries  most  deeply, 
and  that  while  the  great  and  general  causes  of  suffering,  of 
crime,  of  discontent  and  disorder  existed,  it  would  be  use- 
less for  them  to  be  occupied  in  small  palliatives  which  did 
not  touch  the  true  sources. 

"  After  that  the  Petitions  were  accepted  to  be  presented 
to  the  Assembly. 

"  You  can  understand  the  interest  to  us  of  these  men 
doing  so  well  after  the  interval  of  years  in  which  David  has 
not  seen  any  of  them.  M.  Le  Play  wont  down  to  Versailles 
with  them.    He  has  now  undertaken  to  work  up  the  subject." 


THE  LAST  CHAPTER  291 

The  substance  of  the  Petition  presented  by  the  Deputa- 
tion was  that  the  Assembly  "  would  establish  in  such  a 
manner  as  shall  seem  best  a  Tribunal  without  whose  sanc- 
tion no  war  shall  be  declared  and  no  treaty  ratified,  the 
nature  of  which  shall  be  rendered  independent  of  all  political 
interference  and  influence,  by  the  manner  and  lasting 
nature  of  its  appointment." 

So  bitter  was  the  feeling  that  had  been  aroused  in  France, 
however,  by  the  callousness  of  England  during  the  Franco- 
German  War,  that  the  Assembly  was  not  disposed  to 
receive  favourably  any  English  suggestion.  The  whole 
proceeding,  moreover,  was  so  unique,  so  contrary  to  any- 
thing they  had  been  accustomed  to  connect  with  the  spirit 
and  motives  of  the  working  men,  and  they  were  so  un- 
prepared for  the  incident,  that  they  were  quite  unable  to 
deal  with  it.  The  action  of  Urquhart  and  the  Committees, 
however,  bore  fruit  later  when  the  Society  of  Jurisconsultes 
of  Arras  made,  in  1873,  a  similar  and  more  detailed  proposal 
to  the  Assembly,  on  the  same  lines. 

Urquhart,  in  the  hope  of  being  supported  by  the  French 
nation,  as  a  whole,  had  laid  a  scheme  before  all  the  Bishops 
urging  on  them  that,  if  the  Church  took  it  up,  it  would 
immensely  strengthen  the  hands  of  the  Pope  when  the 
world  was  once  more  in  a  sufficiently  peaceful  state  to 
allow  the  proclamation  of  the  Law  of  Nations  to  be  con- 
sidered by  the  Council. 

"  God  grant,"  wrote  Mgr.  Franchi,  from  Constantinople, 
"  that  the  great  ones  of  the  earth  may  listen  to  you.  The 
Address  to  the  Assembly  will  be  a  great  step  towards  the 
restoration  of  Justice  and  Charity." 

The  idea,  however,  was  intensely  unpopular  in  France, 
and  both  Russia  and  Prussia  were  on  the  alert  to  prevent 
any  return  to  a  reign  of  Law  and  Order.  Every  attempt 
was  made  to  hinder  Urquhart's  propaganda. 

"  The  enemy  is  very  sharp,"  he  writes  to  Lord  Denbigh. 
"  The  copies  of  the  Address  have  all  been  stopped  in  the 
French  Post  Office.  They  are  now  being  sent  out  again 
from  Geneva  by  private  hands.  Also  the  little  pamphlet 
Beso'in  d'un  Tribunal  pour  la  Guerre  has  been  stopped.     A 


292  DAVID  URQUHART 

member  of  the  Swiss  Government  has  come  to  Lausanne 
to  stop  my  letters  in  the  Gazette.  The  Russian  Minister  is 
at  work  with  and  on  each  person  that  I  gain  here.  I  am 
troubled  and  stopped  at  every  point." 

In  France,  even  in  the  minds  of  pious  Catholics,  there 
was  room  for  nothing  but  thoughts  of  revenge. 

"  Your  theories  are  admirable,"  said  more  than  one  of 
those  whom  he  addressed.  "  We  are  entirely  at  one  with 
them ;  let  us  first  be  avenged  on  Germany  and  then  we  will 
consider  the  question  of  the  Law  of  Nations." 

One  of  the  most  devout  of  laymen,  the  Comte  de  Breda, 
wrote  declining  to  have  anything  to  do  with  the  Petition : 

"  II  n'y  a,  il  ne  pent  y  avoir  en  France  aujourd'hui  qu'un 
seul  desire,  reprendre  le  guerre  des  qu'on  pourra.  Ce  n'est 
pas  a  nous  qu'il  faut  parler  de  paix  maintenant.  ...  Je 
livrerais  sans  hesiter  la  France  au  premier  caporal  venu, 
^i  c'etait  certain  qu'il  nous  menerait  a  la  destruction 
de  I'Allemagne.  ...  Je  ne  connais  pas  une  femme  qui  ne 
destine  Son  fils  a  tuer  un  jour  les  Allemands.  ...  Si 
toutes  les  Puissances  Europeennes  s'unisaient  pour  de- 
truire  la  Prusse  et  I'ltalie  elles  ne  feraient  que  se  mettre 
au  service  du  Droit." 

Such  a  state  of  mind  was  incomprehensible  to  Urquhart, 

"  As  for  your  wishes^  for  the  destruction  of  Germany," 
he  Said,  "  I  have  no  right  to  judge  as  a  Catholic,  but  as  a 
citizen  and  as  a  man  I  can  judge,  and  my  judgment  is  that 
such  a  wish  is  altogether  irreconcilable  with  either  of  the 
two  characters,  and  the  reading  of  the  Fathers  of  the  Church 
would  lead  me  to  the  like  conclusion." 

The  Comte  de  Breda  supported  his  wish  for  the  destruc- 
tion of  Germany  by  Saying  that  it  was  Protestantism,  and 
particularly  German  Protestantism,  which  was  responsible 
for  the  state  of  the  world — not,  as  Urquhart  had  been  all 
his  life  preaching,  "  the  neglect  of  the  Law  of  God." 

Urquhart  answered : 

"  There  is  no  excuse  for  a  Catholic  comparing  himself 
with  a  Protestant,  except  to  find  out  wherein  he  might  take 
example  from  him.  I  can  see  no  difference  between  the 
public  conduct  of  Protestants  and  Catholics.  Both  are 
alike  oblivious  of  the  Law  of  God  in  public  affairs.     Only, 


THE  LAST  CHAPTER  293 

Catholics  have  never  repudiated,  as  Protestants  have,  the 
right  of  the  Church  to  give  the  law  to  the  State. 

"The  world  is  in  a  bad  way  because  of  the  want  of 
religion,  it  is  true,  but  the  evil  is  due  to  the  failure  of  the 
Catholic  Church  to  fulfil  her  duty. 

"  La  Science  des  choses  divines  ne  trouve  son  application 
que  dans  la  Science  des  choses  humaines." 

"  To  get  the  world  out  of  its  present  tangle  a  man  must 
be  a  diplomatist  and  a  metaphysician;  but  at  the  root  he 
must  be  a  religious  man,  and,  if  possible,  a  man  with  a 
religious  authority.  He  must  be  able  to  do  what  I  have 
been  trying  all  my  life  in  vain  to  do.  A  bishop,  hearing 
me  speak  once,  said,  '  Est-ce  possible  que  de  telles  paroles 
tombent  d'une  bouche  qui  n'est  pas  Catholique  ?' 

"  I  answered,  '  The  pity  is  that  such  words  do  not  fall 
from  the  lips  of  any  Catholic'  " 

What  stirred  him  to  the  depths  was  his  conviction  that, 
if  Catholic  bishops  could  be  thoroughly  convinced  of  the 
absolute  necessity,  not  only  for  intellectual  assent  to  the 
truth  of  what  he  said,  but  morally  convinced  that  it  was 
their  duty  to  act  on  the  world,  a  great  part  of  the  work 
would  be  done. 

"  A  bishop,"  he  wrote  to  Pere  Ramiere,  "  with  the  Pope 
over  him,  with  a  diocese  under  him,  with  the  power  to 
issue  Pastorals,  to  instruct  the  young  to  influence  indi- 
vidual souls  in  the  confessional  and  the  whole  Church 
wherein  to  make  his  voice  heard,  what  might  he  not  do  !" 

"  What  a  difference  between  us  as  to  our  estimate  of  the 
Catholic  Church  !  It  ig  not  a  question  of  the  number  of 
steps  you  can  make  with  me,  but  of  those  which  you  do 
not  make  at  all,  and  which  you  cannot  make  because  you 
believe  the  Church  to  be  powerless." 

Urquhart's  belief  in  the  power  of  the  Church  was  un- 
limited. Hence  his  bitter  disappointment  when,  as  he 
thought,  her  failure  to  act  promptly  and  strenuously  meant 
to  the  world  that  what  she  alone  could  do  remained  undone. 
What  baffled  him  to  the  end  of  his  days  was  why  a  body 
which  possessed  boundless  power  should,  as  he  thought, 
fail  to  exert  it. 

But  though  her  exertions  could  have  accomplished  so 
much  and  his  so  little,  that  was  no  reason  for  relaxing  effort. 


294  DAVID  URQUHART 

He  toiled  without  break,  without  intermission,  even  when 
in  the  last  years  of  his  life  he  was  almost  too  weak  to  hold 
his  pen,  to  raise  his  voice.  Now  he  was  in  Paris,  now  in 
the  northern  towns  of  England,  urging  the  Foreign  Affairs 
Committees  to  resist  the  representation  of  England  at  the 
Congress  of  Brussels,  and  again  at  the  chalet,  trying  to 
gather  round  him  men  who  might  carry  on  his  work. 
"For,"  writes  Mrs.  Urquhart,  in  1876,  to  a  promising 
English  pupil,  "  he  begins  to  grow  old,  and  there  is  no  one 
to  take  his  place." 

The  Diplomatic  Review  still  owed  its  existence  to  his 
constant  exertions,  and  he  had  a  great  share  in  the  founding 
and  maintaining  of  the  Rome,  a  French  Catholic  news- 
paper published  in  Rome,  which  was  yet  another  of  his 
means  of  "  preparing  the  occasion  "  for  the  Pope. 

In  1875  he  paid  his  last  visit  to  the  Committees,  speaking 
with  all  his  old  energetic  force.  His  speech  to  the  Keighley 
Committee  is  the  best  and  clearest  resume  that  he  ever 
gave  of  the  history  of  the  Chartist  Movement  and  the 
origin  and  work  of  the  Committees. 

But  he  had  completely  dropped  out  of  English  political 
life. 

His  last  years  were  touched  with  sorrow  and  disappoint- 
ment. He  saw  his  friends  fall  off  one  by  one,  some  silenced 
by  the  hand  of  death,  some  overpowered  by  weariness  or 
taken  prisoner  by  the  spirit  of  the  world  and  chained  within 
its  stronghold.  But  he  yielded  neither  to  outward  pressure 
nor  inward  weariness.  Even  on  his  last  journey,  the  voyage 
which  he  took  to  the  East  in  a  vain  effort  to  revive  the 
strength  which  was  at  last  all  spent,  his  brain  and  his  hand 
never  ceased  to  work. 

He  died  at  Naples  on  his  way  home  from  Egypt  on 
May  17th,  1877.  In  his  portfolio,  after  his  death,  was 
found,  amongst  other  unfinished  papers,  the  copy  of  a 
letter  he  had  written  to  a  friend: 

"  You  speak  to  me  of  the  religion  of  the  Church,  and  you 
say  that  the  object  for  which  I  work  is  a  detail,  though 
you  grant  a  very  important  one.  I  work  to  make  men  see 
sin  where  they  do  not  now  see  it. 


THE  LAST  CHAPTER  295 

"  When  Las  Casas  worked  for  the  same  object,  do  you 
know  what  he  answered  when  men  asked  him  why  he 
worked  so  hard  ?  He  said,  '  I  have  left  Jesus  Christ,  your 
Saviour,  crucified,  not  once,  but  a  thousand  times  by  the 
Spaniards,  in  the  person  of  the  Indian  Nations.' 

"  Here  it  is  not  the  Spaniards  and  some  Indian  tribes 
at  the  other  side  of  the  world,  it  is  all  of  us  who  are  murderers 
and  victims,  who  crucify  and  are  crucified." 

The  words  come  like  a  noble  melody  wherein  all  the 
apparent  discords  of  the  life  are  resolved  into  a  great 
harmony.  The  disappointments,  the  human  mistakes,  the 
misunderstandings,  the  sorrows,  the  irritations,  the  anxieties 
which  had  worn  down  his  strength  until  the  last  day  of 
racking  pain  came  to  end  the  strife,  are  but  incidents  in  the 
heroic  story  of  that  life  of  gigantic  effort — that  life  of 
thought  in  action  before  which  Death  sinks  into  insigni- 
ficance. 

Among  the  tributes  paid  after  his  death  to  Urquhart's 
memory  none  is  more  touching  than  this  letter  by  one  of 
his  working-men  friends  to  the  Herald  : 

"  Sm, — 'Most  of  the  London  daily  newspapers  and  many 
of  the  provincial  daily  papers  and  others  have  had  lengthy 
notices  upon  the  death  of  the  above-named  gentleman. 
Those  who  have  read  them  will  think  that  they  have  read 
something  about  him.  Beyond  learning  the  fact  of  his 
death,  however,  I  think  that  the  readers  would  know  less 
of  him  than  they  knew  before.  At  any  rate,  if  they  were 
ignorant  of  Mr.  Urquhart's  work  and  aims  before,  they 
Avould  not  be  enlightened  after,  on  anything  except  upon 
his  endeavours  to  establish  the  practice  of  Turkish  bathing. 
Perhaps  we  don't  need  to  be  surprised  at  this.  A  wise  man 
is  seldom  known  in  his  own  generation.  It  is  only  neces- 
sary to  mention  the  case  of  the  great  Founder  of  Chris- 
tianity, who  was  reviled  and  spat  upon  and  crucified  by  the 
men  of  His  generation;  or  of  Socrates,  who  was  poisoned 
publicly  by  the  men  of  his  own  country;  or  the  case  of 
our  own  Shakespeare  and  Milton,  who  were  little  known 
and  appreciated  in  their  own  day  and  generation.  It  has 
been  for  history  and  men  unborn  at  the  time  to  reveal  in 
after  times  the  greatness  and  glory  of  their  characters.  I 
am  not  anxious  to  anticipate  history  or  to  try  to  write 
history.     All  human  actions  either  are  or  will  be  reckoned 


296  DAVID  URQUHART 

at  their  right  value.     The  law  of  compensation  is  a  law  of 
God,  and  it  invariably  squares  matters  to  a  hair's  breadth. 
I  may,  however,  be  permitted  to  say  a  few  words  about 
this  great,  self-sacrificing  man,  having  known  him  twenty 
years,  having  listened  to  his  words  many  long  hours,  having 
had   considerable   correspondence   with    him,    and   having 
read  nearly  all  his  written  works.     It  is  of  such  knowledge 
of  him  that  I  am  able  to  say  that  such  newspaper  notices 
of  his  death  as  I  have  seen  give  no  account  of  him  at  all, 
and  contain  no  truth  in  regard  to  him.     Whoever  these 
newspaper  remarks  may  apply  to,  I  am  quite  certain  that 
they  do  not  apply  to  him.     Prior  to  a  period  when  I  came 
to  know  him,  in  1857, 1  had  been  a  Feargus  O'Connor's  man, 
an  admirer  of  G.  W.  M.  Reynolds,  a  disciple  of  Joseph 
Barker,  and  a  general  grumbler  against  all  the  institutions 
of  the  country,  and  a  rabid  advocate  in  my  little  way  for 
change  and  extreme  reforms.     I  did  not  know  the  value  of 
law,  and  I  did  not  respect  it.     My  condition  was  the  con- 
dition of  thousands— perhaps   of  millions — of  my  fellow- 
countrymen,  as  it  is  the  condition  of  many  now,  but  I  do 
not  think  to  as  great  an  extent.     Mr.  Urquhart  has  changed 
many,  and  they,  in  their  turn,  have  changed  others.     When 
I  knew  him  at  first,  his  labours  were  then  directed  to  the 
most  extreme  men — Atheists,  Chartists,  extreme  Radicals. 
He  went  from  town  to  town,  all  over  England,  to  find  them. 
He  who  might  have  s^at  at  home  in  luxurious  apartments, 
taking  his  ease,  like  thousands  of  the  rich  at  this  day, 
turned  out  into  the  crowded  cities  and  towns,  and  sought 
out  all  the  active  men  amongst  the  working  classes,  so  that 
he  might  converse  with  them,  and  deal  with  the  fallacies 
and  errors  that   were  in  them      When  men  asked  him, 
'  Will  you  help  us  to  get  votes  ?'  he  said,  '  I  will  help  you 
to  get  knowledge  of  your  country  and  its  concerns,  so  that 
if  the  vote  be  of  any  value  it  will  come  to  you,  instead  of 
your  spending  all  your  days  to  try  to  get  it.'     When  men 
asked  him,  '  Will  you  help  us  to  get  the  ballot  V   he  said, 
'  Have  you  not  secrecy  enough  ?     You  have  secret  diplo- 
macy, great  affairs  of  State  conducted  in  whispers.     Well, 
you  clamour  to  have  secrecy  in  voting  instead  of  spending 
your  time  and  energy  in  endeavouring  to  abolish  secrecy 
in  international  transactions.'     He  was  successful  to  a  very 
great  extent  amongst  the  active  men  of  the  working  classes, 
and  I  have  heard  him  say  over  and  over  again  that  some 
of  the  best  workers  and  the  most  heroic  and  patriotic  men 
have  been  gathered  from  amongst  the  active  revolutionary 


THE  LAST  CHAPTER  297 

men  of  the  working  classes.  They  have  turned  out  to  be 
far  more  earnest  defenders  of  the  Constitution  than  the 
great  mass  of  those  who  have  been  brought  up  religiously, 
and  who  have  been  taught  ordinarily  to  respect  the  Con- 
stitution. The  men  that  he  has  picked  up  from  the  former 
class  were  used  to  work — they  were  fighters  naturally. 
Mr.  Urquhart's  success  with  them  has  been  to  give  a  new 
direction  to  their  energies,  to  direct  them  to  fight  for  the 
restoration  and  preservation  of  the  Constitution,  in  place  ol 
fighting  against  it.  He  visited  Preston  many  times,  some- 
times for  the  purpose  of  talking  for  hours  to  two  or  three 
working  men.  On  two  occasions  I  managed  to  get  the  late 
Canon  Parr  and  him  together.  Whatever  some  have  said 
about  the  late  vicar,  he  was  unquestionably  a  man  of  a 
wonderful  understanding  and  an  earnest  patriot.  He 
could  understand  and  appreciate  him.  He  used  to  say  to 
me  what  the  Earl  of  Denbigh  afterwards  said  in  the  House 
of  Lords,  '  Mr.  Urquhart  is  the  Cassandra  of  this  age.'  The 
vicar  understood  with  very  little  effort  all  the  matters  that 
Mr.  Urquhart  endeavoured  to  teach  us— such  as  the  right 
of  search,  the  hollowness  of  the  Crimean  War,  the  necessity 
for  the  restoration  of  the  Privy  Council,  the  schemes  of 
Russia,  the  value  of  the  House  of  Lords,  the  Treaty  of 
Denmark,  maldng  over  the  Crown  of  Denmark  to  Russia, 
and  many  other  questions.  The  vicar  has  gone  to  rest, 
and  I  hope  from  the  bottom  of  my  soul  that  he  is  in  heaven. 
I  am  afraid  that  Ave  may  never  get  another  minister  of  the 
Established  Church  to  listen  to  us  and  help  us  as  he  did. 

"  One  lesson  that  Mr.  Urquhart  impressed  upon  all  his 
disciples  perhaps  more  than  any  other  was  that  man  can 
form  no  conception  of  his  own  capacity.  He  does  not 
know  what  he  can  do,  or,  rather,  what  he  can't  do.  That 
every  separate  man  should  always  work  as  if  the  saving  of 
his  nation  depended  upon  his  own  efforts  alone.  He  im- 
pressed upon  them  that  it  was  not  their  business  to  be 
elated  by  success,  or  cast  down  by  failure;  that  it  was  quite 
as  glorious  for  a  good  man  to  fail  in  any  matter  as  it  was 
to  succeed,  always  providing  he  had  done  his  best,  and  left 
nothing  undone  that  it  was  possible  for  him  to  do;  that 
God  never  required  a  man  to  do  more  nor  less  than  his  duty. 

"  Mr.  Urquhart  seemed  to  care  most  and  look  most  after 
the  intelligent  and  well-meaning  amongst  the  working- 
classes.  He  used  to  say  that  they  were  the  easiest  to 
change.  They  were  simple,  humble,  and  without  pride. 
They  had  nothing  to  lose,  in  a  social  sense,  by  change. 


298  DAVID  URQUHART 

They  had  not  an  array  of  rich  acquaintances  or  a  lot  of 
customers  to  please ;  their  poverty  made  them  independent 
He  said  that  Christ  was  most  successful  among  working 
men,  with  here  and  there  a  rich,  influential  man  to  lead 
them,  and  what  happened  in  His  day  would  always  happen 
with  everyone  who  sought  to  recover  righteousness  amongst 
men.     Working  men  would  take  the  lead,  and  the  middle 
and  higher  classes  would  fall  in  without  looking  singular. 
Mr.  Urquhart  has  been  called  an  '  extreme  man,'  and  an 
extreme  man  he  unquestionably  was,  to  all  intents  and 
purposes.     Not  for  anything  in  life  would  he  tell  less  or 
more  than  the  truth,  for  which  alone  he  '  lived  and  breathed 
and  had  his  being.'     His  language  ever  came  burning  and 
bursting  fresh  from  his  soul.     His  denunciation  of  inatten- 
tion to  public  aiiairs  and  want  of  patriotism  was  terrible 
to  the  last  degree,  and  it  extended  to  all  who  were  guilty 
of  it.     Men  of  rank,  the  greatest  in  the  land,  were  dealt 
with  as  mercilessly  as  others,  even  more  so.     Justice  and 
truth  and  right  he  loved  above  all  things,  and  whoever 
went  against  them  he  warred  with  without  stint  and  with- 
out  abatement.     Those   who   worked  for  them   were   his 
friends.     He  would  have  gone  miles  to  see  one  of  them, 
even  if  he  was  a  beggar,  and  to  him  he  would  have  given 
the  very  bread  from  his  mouth.     During  his  long,  laborious, 
and  most  enthusiastic  life  he  has  been  variously  estimated 
by  various  men.     Some  have  called  him  a  Mohammedan, 
some  a  Catholic,  some  a  Russian  spy,  some  a  friend  to 
despotism,  and  some  have  called  him  a  madman.     Each  of 
these  in  his  blind  classification  of  Mr.  Urquhart  has  seen 
his  own  thought,  but  has  not  seen  one  glimpse  of  the  man, 
Mr.  Urquhart,  any  more  than  the  writers  in  the  London 
dailies.     The  measure  of  the  charge  as  to  his  being  a  Moham- 
medan is  simply  and  only  that  he  wished  justice  to  be  done 
to  Turkey,  justice  as  laid  down  and  prescribed  by  the  Law 
of  Nations,  that  law  which  is  founded  and  grounded  on 
the  unvarying  law  of  God,   which  always  remains,   even 
although  erring  nations  may  break  it  ten  thousand  times. 
The  charge  of  his  being  a  Catholic  is  true  to  the  extent 
that  he  has  looked  on  Catholics  as  human  beings  having  a 
great  organisation  professedly  untrammelled  by  obedience 
to  the  potentates  of  the  earth,  except  in  so  far  as  that 
obedience  did  not  entail  the  committing  of  public  crime. 
As  he  had  laboured  amongst  the  dignitaries  of  his  own 
Church,  and  as  he  laboured  amongst  revolutionary  bodies 
to  get  both  to  see  that  inattention  to  public  affairs  was 


THE  LAST  CHAPTER  299 

a  crime,  that  unjust  war  was  murder,  and  that  secrecy  in 
international  affairs  was  a  standing  incentive  to  corruption, 
so  did  he  try  to  reach  the  great  Catholic  organisation  by 
appeaUng  to  its  dignitaries,  reminding  them  of  their  own 
canons,  and  impressing  them  with  the  necessity  of  con- 
demning public  crime,  so  that  they  might  not  put  obedience 
to  the  potentates  of  the  earth  before  that  obedience  which 
all  Christian  communities  first  owe  to  God.     This  he  laboured 
long  and  unceasingly  to  teach  all  men  that  he  could  reach. 
He  never  ceased  to  teach  it  day  and  night.     For  this  his 
health,  time,  and  money  were  spent  without  stint.     For 
this  he  spent  thousands  of  pounds  of  his  own  money  while 
often  he  lived  on  twopence  a  day.     I  am  getting  an  old 
man.     From  my  boyhood  upwards  I  have  seen  and  heard 
many  public  men,  and  I  have  read  of  many  others,  but  it 
has  never  yet  fallen  to  my  lot  to  know  or  to  learn  of  such 
an   instance    of   pure,    unsullied,    unselfish   patriotism — so 
great,  so  earnest,  and  so  fearless  a  teacher  of  public  duty, 
who  entered  into  his  work  with  an  undivided  soul,  never 
tiring,  never  weary,  always  fresh,  and  always  earnest  to 
the  last  degree.     I  have  seen  him  put  important  matters 
aside  when  three  factory  lads  have  presented  themselves 
at  the  hotel  where  he  had  been  staying,  and  for  six  hours 
I  have  heard  him  address  them  in  earnest  and  impassioned 
language  on  public  matters,  showing  them  their  duty  in 
relation  to  them.     Many  public  men  have  lived  to  make  a 
jingle  or  a  sound,  to  catch  the  ephemeral  applause  of  the 
multitude  and  the  fine  eyes  of  many,  but  Mr.  Urquhart 
sought  out  the  thinkers  and  men  who  had  a  passion  for 
justice.     He  sought  to  make  men  who  could  do  their  own 
work  instead  of  being  tied  to  the  tail  of  a  leader.     He 
succeeded   far   beyond   his    expectations.     He   has   left   a 
number  behind  him  who  mourn  his  loss  with  real  sorrow, 
and  who  will  honour  his  memory  in  the  one  way  which, 
above  all  others,  will  gladden  his  soul  if  he  can  look  down 
upon  them,  and  that  is  by  practising  those  lessons  of  public 
duty  which  it  was  the  great  aim  of  his  precious  life  to  teach 
them  so  often  and  so  well. 

"  Hoping  that  you  will  insert  this  poor  attempt  at  giving 
a  very  faint  glimpse  of  the  late  Mr.  Urquhart, 

"I  am, 

"Yours,  etc., 

"  William  Singleton. '" 


300  DAVID  URQUHART 

This  epitaph,  composed  by  the  Abbe  Defourny,  was  set 
over  Urquhart's  grave  at  Clarens,  near  Montreux: 


SIT   NOMEN   JESU 
BENEDICTUM 


IN    MEMORIAM 

DAVID  URQUHART 

APUD    BRAELANGWELL   IN    SCOTIA 
ORTI   A.D.    1805 
NEAPOLI   DEFUXCTI   A.D.    1877 
VIR 
SUMMO    INGENIO   INVICTA   CONSTANTIA 
VIXIT   LABORAVIT 
PRISCAE   REVERENTIAE   INTER   HOMINES 
RESTITUTOR 
NEFANDAE   TRADITIONIS   POLITICAE 
VINDEX 
JURIS    GENTIUM 
MAXIME   VERO   BELLI   PACISQUE 
TANTUM   HOC   ^VO   NON    DELETI 
PROPUGNATOR 


APPENDIX  I 

SOME  DETAILS  OF  MAJOR  POORE'S  LAND  SCHEME  AS 
SUCCESSFULLY  WORKED  AT  WINTERSLOW 

With  reference  to  the  question  of  the  w  orking  of  the  land  scheme 
at  Winterslow,  it  was  known  that  some  of  the  men  would  liJce 
to  have  some  land  of  their  own ;  they  had  already  tried  renting 
a  little  land  in  the  neighbourhood,  but  it  had  not  been  a  success. 

JMajor  Poore  felt  tliat  the  lack  of  success  of  small  holdings 
was  due  to  faulty  administration;  he  therefore  started  a  scheme 
to  show  how  a  system  of  small  holders  can  be  securely-  and 
permanently  established  on  the  land  by  the  action  and  kno-w  ledge 
of  the  men  themselves,  quite  independent  of,  and  unhamiDcred 
by,  any  outside  aid  or  interference,  injurmg  no  one,  not  adding 
a  farthing  to  the  rates,  and  carrying  A\ith  it  automatic  means 
for  its  own  success  and  endurance. 

In  the  year  1892  a  farm  happened  to  be  for  sale  in  the  neigh- 
bourhood, and  in  consultation  with  the  committee  of  the  village 
(which  had  already  been  instituted  by  Major  Poore  as  part  of 
his  organisation  of  his  County  Council  division)  was  bought 
at  public  auction,  at  about  £10  an  acre,  with  money  borrowed 
from  the  bank.  Major  Poore  acting  as  security. 

Notice  was  given  to  the  village  that  anyone  requiring  land 
might  apply  to  the  village  committee,  whose  meetings  were 
held  in  the  schoolroom  or  Oddfellows'  Hall,  Avhere  applications 
for  land  were  gone  into. 

Forty-seven  people  wished  to  take  holdings,  consisting  of 
woodmen,  carriers,  shopkeepers,  agricultural  lalDOurers,  black- 
smith, builder,  postmaster,  postman,  roadmen,  pensioners  from 
H.M.  Service,  truffle-hunters,  hay-trussers,  keeper,  school- 
master. 

Men  who  had  Avorked  on  the  farm  A\'ere  then  employed  to 
value  the  different  portions;  some  they  priced  at  £8  an  acre, 
and  some  at  as  much  as  £30. 

As  this  was  the  first  venture.  Major  Poore  had  it  revalued 
by  a  professional  valuer,  who  expressed  his  opinion  that  the 
men's  valuation  could  not  be  improved  upon. 

The  farm  was  divided  into  five  sections,  and  these  sections 
were  again   divided   into   small  holdmgs,   as  required  by  the 

301 


302  DAVID  URQUHART 

applicants.  The  largest  holding  was  16  acres  and  the  smallest 
I  of  an  acre,  with  an  average  oi  2  acres 

To  deal  with  the  management  of  the  land,  these  forty- seven 
men  were  formed  into  groups  of  about  ten  neighbours;  each 
group  chose  its  own  chairman  and  vice-chairman,  who  formed 
the  "  Land  Court,"  presided  over  by  Major  Poore.  The  chairman 
is  permanent,  the  vice  is  appointed  from  a  rota  of  the  section 
and  holds  office  for  one  year. 

The  Land  Court  then  proceeded  to  administer  the  scheme, 
and  it  was  decided  that  a  fair  but  enhanced  price  was  to  be  put 
upon  the  land,  and  that  the  average  price  was  to  be  £15  an  acre. 

A  Table  was  drawn  up  on  the  basis  of  fifteen  years'  purchase, 
whereby  the  capital  and  interest  would  be  paid  off,  until  at  the 
end  of  fifteen  years  the  man  would  become  the  owner.  As  a 
matter  of  fact,  the  debt  to  the  bank  was  paid  off  in  1894;  this 
was  partly  owuig  to  some  of  the  holders  paying  for  their  holdings 
right  out.  All  further  payments,  after  paymg  working  expenses, 
went  to  build  up  a  reserve  fund. 

The  payment  took  fifteen  years  to  complete.  Major  Poore 
holding  the  mortgage  until  all  was  paid  up.  .  .  .  The  sum 
borrowed  for  the  purchase  was  repaid,  and  the  surplus,  which 
amounted  to  about  £600,  was  formed  into  a  reserve  fund  for 
the  credit  of  the  Land  Court. 

The  method  of  administering  the  reserve  fund  is  for  a  holder 
wishing  to  borrow  to  have  a  meeting  of  his  section  called;  he 
lays  his  needs  before  them,  also  the  security  he  has  to  offer,  and 
if  his  section,  from  their  knowledge  of  the  man  and  his  security, 
considers  the  proposition  sound  (one  of  the  conditions  being  that 
the  loan  must  not  exceed  75i  per  cent,  of  the  value  of  the  security 
offered),  they  agree,  at  the  next  meeting  of  the  Land  Court, 
to  advance  the  mortgage  loan.  The  chairman  of  the  section  lays 
the  facts  before  the  court,  saying  his  section  recommends  it,  and 
if  the  court  approves  it,  the  advance  is  made. 

The  result  of  this  system  is  that  the  reserve  fund,  which  has 
been  of  enormous  benefit  to  these  men,  has  now  more  than 
doubled,  and  their  property  has  greatly  increased  in  value. 

'The  institution  of  the  Land  Court  gives  the  small  holder  full 
responsibility,  and  a  direct  and  sole  interest  in  the  land  he  holds, 
and  at  the  same  time  sets  up  a  common  or  mutual  interest 
which,  while  preserving  the  personal  interest,  teaches  the  judicial 
method  of  bringing  every  mind  into  unison  for  the  common  benefit. 

The  Avhole  of  this  organisation  has  been  run  -wdthout  creating 
any  disputes  or  ill-feeling  among  the  members,  and  on  such  good 
business  lines  that,  though,  of  course,  he  gave  much  time  and 
thought  to  it,  it  cost  the  organiser  nothing,  and  greatly  benefited 
these  men,  keeping  for  them  their  entire  self-respect,  as  there  has 
been  no  outside  aid  or  subscription  of  any  sort,  and  in  no  respect 
has  it  been  a  matter  of  politics. 


APPENDIX  I  303 

The  principal  object  has  been  to  form  a  common  interest 
which  will  encourage  individual  efiort  and  at  the  same  time 
show  an  easy  method  of  united  action  for  mutual  trade  purposes. 

There  Avas  no  initial  advantage  in  the  farm  purchased;  the 
land  was  naturally  poor,  and,  besides,  was  in  a  starved  con- 
dition when  it  was  taken,  and  the  water-supply  was  bad.  It 
is  six  miles  from  the  nearest  market  town  and  four  miles  from 
the  nearest  station. 

jSTot  a  single  holder  has  regretted  his  purchase  or  his  work,  and 
husband,  wife  and  children  all  co-operate  to  get  the  most  out  of  the 
land.  A  large  number  keep  fowls,  and  there  is  a  well-supported  pig 
club.  The  land  is  now  in  a  highly  cultivated  state,  producing  all 
that  small  holdings  are  capable  of;  the  water-suppty  has  been 
arranged,  and  the  houses  are  most  cojnfortable,  with  convenient 
outhouses,  and,  above  all,  there  is  the  pride  of  ownership; 
"  This  is  my  own  land,  every  penny  paid  for,  and  this  is  my  own 
house." 

A  neighbouring  farmer,  a  practical  agriculturist,  who  was  much 
prejudiced  against  small  holdings,  has  completely  changed  his 
views  on  the  subject  since  this  venture  was  inaugurated,  and  now 
takes  the  greatest  interest  in  its  success,  as  he  considers  that  at 
least  ten  times  more  is  being  got  out  of  the  land  than  was 
previously  obtained. 

These  men,  mostly  Wiltshire  labourers,  at  16s.  a  week  or  less, 
have  paid  for  their  land,  and  are  now  owners. 

They  have  built  for  themselves  about  forty  very  comfortable 
cottages. 

The  land  by  their  efforts  has  greatly  increased  in  value. 

There  have  been  no  disputes  or  ill-feelmg. 

The  venture  has  added  nothing  to  the  rates,  but  has  added 
considerably  to  the  rateable  value. 

There  is  a  surplus  of  over  £1,500  for  the  Land  Court  to  apply 
for  its  betterment  and  extension. 

The  Land  Court  also  deals  with  all  questions  as  they  arise, 
collects  the  rates,  tithes,  etc.,  and  pays  them  over  as  they  become 
due,  and  after  twenty-five  years  the  books  show  few  altera- 
tions of  names,  though  in  some  instances  the  land  has  been 
transferred  to  the  sons  of  the  original  holders. 

The  administration  of  the  Land  Court  is  the  application 
to  a  modern  scheme  of  the  Old  English  common  law  (common 
sense)  which  separates  all  administration  into  two  distinct 
procedures : 

1.  To  inquire  into  the  facts  of  the  case  by  the  men  of  the 
locality,  the  neighbours  on  the  spot,  and  to  balance  such 
facts  to  the  point  that  no  man  can  deny  in  the  presence  of 
his  neighbour. 

2.  To  judge  for  action  on  such  means  for  decision.  If  such 
precautions  are  taken,  judgment  will  not  err. 


304  DAVID  URQUHART 

There  is,  and  has  been,  no  voting,  no  decidmg  by  a  majority, 
there  being  nothing  to  vote  about  when  the  facts  are  agreed  upon. 
A  fundamental  principle  of  the  Land  Court  is  that  each  man  must 
carefully  master  the  facts  of  the  case  before  a  decision  is  given, 
thereby  trainmg  the  holders  carefully  to  consider  their  actions, 
both  in  court  and  private  life,  without  giving  rise  to  Jealousies  or 
party  feeling — once  again  proving  the  fact  that  if  you  organise 
a  body  of  men  so  that  they  may  be  capable  of  Judicial  responsi- 
bility they  will  act  accordingly.  No  money  has  been  wasted 
on  the  payment  of  clerks  or  officials.  The  only  salary  paid  is 
£5  a  year  to  the  village  schoolmaster,  who  acts  as  secretary  in 
his  spare  time. 

The  following  account  was  written  by  Mr.  Alfred  Goodere, 
Editor  of  the  Salisbury  Times,  in  1907.  It  is  partly  an  abstract 
of  notes  which  had  appeared  from  time  to  tune  in  the  local 
papers,  and  partly  the  result  of  his  own  observations,  for  he 
had  known  the  Land  Court  from  the  beginning : 

1890. — ^The  condition  of  Winterslow  was  this:  A  village,  eight 
miles  from  the  city  of  Salisbury,  large  area,  scattered  population, 
usual  concomitants  of  rural  life — big  farms,  a  few  small  holdings. 
Population  working  in  the  woods,  labourers  on  the  land,  with  the 
ordinary  tradesmen — bakers,  grocers,  blacksmiths,  etc.  Many  of 
the  inhabitants  housed  in  thatched  cottages,  with  small  windows, 
few  rooms;  in  some  cases  congestion,  unliealthy  to  the  moral  and 
physical  well-being  of  the  occujDiers.  Fairly  active  public  spii'it  in 
evidence,  but  the  only  forms  of  corj)orate  life  besides  the  religious 
organisations  were  a  lodge  of  Oddfellows,  a  tent  of  Rechabites,  and 
the  administration  of  pig  clubs  and  a  cricket  club. 

1892. — A  meeting  in  the  village  schoolroom.  Present,  about 
thirty  men,  respectably  attired,  keenly  alert;  in  the  chair  a 
gentleman  who  is  the  representative  of  the  Whitej^arish  Division, 
including  Winterslow,  on  the  Wiltshire  County  Council.  They 
are  met  to  discuss  the  affau's  of  village  life,  and  to  consider  a 
project  which  has  been  laid  before  them  by  Major  Poore.  It  is 
a  Parish  Council  without  the  name,  and  on  a  more  directlv 
representative  basis  than  any  Parish  Council  I  have  known. 
The  topic  before  the  meeting  is  the  division  of  a  farm  into  small 
holdings,  to  be  bought  outright  on  a  system  of  deferred  payment. 
Free  discussion  and  outspoken  opinions  about  the  advantages 
likely  to  accrue  from  peasant  proprietorship;  also  an  appre- 
ciation of  the  difficulties  A\hich  may  have  to  be  surmounted.  In 
earnest,  the  men  eventually  decide  to  make  a  trial  to  participate 
in  a  scheme  fraught  with  great  possibilities  in  regard  to  the 
landless  man  and  the  manless  land  and  the  possession  of  more 
comfortable  dwellings. 

1895. — Another  visit  to  Winterslow.  The  ideas  of  three  years 
ago  have  matured.  A  farm  of  118  acres  has  been  divided  into 
lots,  and  is  now  in  the  possession  of  nearly  fifty  families.     About 


APPENDIX  I  305 

ten  houses  have  been  erected  or  are  in  course  of  completion,  and 
as  a  townsman  I  go  round,  talk  with  the  men  and  women  about 
their  venture.  Ready  to  communicate,  I  find  them  contented 
with  their  bargains.  Fau'ly  optimistic,  they  do  not  gush;  they 
are  face  to  face  with  difficulties,  the  grappling  with  which  may 
make  or  break  them.  The  land  Avas  in  a  starved  condition  when 
they  took  it,  and  they  have  by  their  own  industry  and  by  their 
own  capital  put  nearly  every  bit  of  value  that  is  now  in  it.  A 
few,  having  little  hordes  of  savings,  have  already  paid  the 
purchase  money  for  their  holdings.  The  majority  have  paid 
for  the  first  two  years'  instalments,  and  have  to  look  forward 
thirteen  years  before  they  can  confidently  say:  "This  plot  of 
ground  is  my  very  own." 

Tuesday,  March  12,  1907.— Work  m  the  West  Riding  of  York- 
shu-e  and  in  the  Midlands  has  prevented  a  revisit  to  Winterslow 
until  to-day.  Giving  the  sum,  deferring  the  circumstance,  this  is 
what  I  find:  Thirty-seven  houses  on  about  118  acres;  the  land 
in  a  highly  cultivated  state,  producing  all  that  small  holdings 
are  capable  of;  and  the  total  product  at  least  ten  times  greater 
than  that  which  had  been  produced  fifteen  years  before.  All  the 
holders,  with  one  single  exception,  have  paid  every  penny  of  the 
purchase  money,  and  can  now  say :  "  This  is  mine."  Many  can 
add :    "And  this  is  my  own  house." 

The  Genesis. 

Let  me  now  give  the  genesis  of  this  transformation.  The  per- 
sonal element  must  be  subordinated,  but,  as  it  means  an  important 
factor,  it  cannot  be  eliminated.  Three  miles  away  from  Winter- 
slow  is  a  gentleman's  house.  Old  Lodge,  owned  by  Major  Poore 
and  Mrs.  Poore.  Major  Poore,  by  the  way,  is  the  father  of  Major 
R.  M.  Poore,  7th  Hussars,  of  Hampshire  cricket  fame. 

When  the  County  Council  Act  came  into  operation  in  Wiltshire, 
Major  Poore,  who  had  during  the  Crimean  War  and  the  Lidian 
Mutiny  served  in  the  8th  Hussars,  was  asked  to  stand  as  a 
candidate  for  the  Whiteparish  Division,  which  includes  Winterslow. 
As  in  most  other  countries,  the  initial  contests  were  partly 
political,  and  believing  that  Major  Poore  belonged  to  the  Con- 
servative party,  he  was  opposed  by  a  Whiteparish  carrier  of 
strong  Liberal  sympathies  and  a  good  deal  of  native  eloquence. 
It  was  soon  seen,  hov/ever,  that  Major  Poore  was  not  a  party 
politician,  and  that  his  candidature  was  not  under  the  aegis  of 
Tory  or  Radical  Association.  He  was  returned  for  the  division 
with  a  large  majority,  and  the  man  who  had  been  his  opponent 
became  one  of  his  warmest  supporters.  Parish  Councils  were 
then  being  talked  about,  but  had  not  been  formed.  Winterslow 
being  the  nearest  village  to  Old  Lodge,  Major  and  Mrs.  Poore- 
took  a  kindly  mterest  in  the  welfare  of  the  community.    For 

20 


To  the  King. 


306  DAVID  URQUHART 

years  Major  Poore  had  been  a  close  student  of  history,  and  had 
a  succinct  knowledge  of  the  old  common  law  of  England.  In 
considermg  the  decadence  of  rural  life  by  the  gradual  absorption 
of  the  yeoman  class,  he  was  convinced  that  the  system  of 
government  had  had  not  a  little  to  do  with  the  partial  loss  of  the 
small  holder  and  proprietor.  Our  local  government  was  too 
much  on  a  machine  pattern,  and,  necessarily  failmg  to  educe 
the  knowledge  and  judgment  of  those  livmg  in  the  neighbourhoods 
and  those  acquainted  with  the  facts  of  the  localities,  had  to  be 
administered  by  paid  officials  and  members  who  often  knew 
nothing  (except  under  hard-and-fast  conditions)  of  the  circum- 
stances under  which  they  so  readily  passed  resolutions.  Under 
the  old  common  law  local  government,  he  found,  was  based  from 
the  bottom. 

1.  The  family  corporate. 

2.  Ten  heads  of  families,  the  frankpledge. 

3.  Ten  heads  of  frankpledge,  the  ty thing. 

4.  Ten  heads  of  hundreds  meeting  in  four  quarters,  the 

shire. 

6.  The  administrative  heads  of  the  shires,' 

the  country. 

7.  From  this  the  Privy  Council,  a  standing 

body  of  the  General  Assembly. 

The  frankpledge,  according  to  Major  Poore' s  reading,  consisted 
of  a  group  of  the  heads  of  the  families;  the  tything  of  ten  heads 
of  frankpledges;    the  hundred  of  a  group  of  the  heads  of  the 
tything;  the  council  of  heads  of  the  hundreds  that  went  to  make 
the  shire.     This  gave  a  ladder  of  direct  representation  from  the 
bottom  to  the  top,  and  collated  the  evidence  and  experience  of 
every  householder,  from  the  household  to  the  frankpledge,  from 
the  frankpledge  to  the  hundred,  from  the  hundred  to  the  shire, 
and  from  the  shire  to  the  country  and  to  the  King,  as  the  personi- 
fication of  the  nation.     Was  it  possible  in  Winterslow  to  re- 
suscitate sonrething   of  the  old  frankpledge  system  ?     At  all 
events,  the  Major  would  try.     He  set  to  work  to  explain  his 
views  to  the  most  intelligent  men  of  the  village;    the  ideas 
gradually  leavened  the  villagers,  and  at  last  the  time  was  ripe  for 
a  meeting.     Old  as  was  the  idea,  it  appeared  absolutely  new; 
yet  a  shrewd  instinct  convinced  the  villagers  that  a  form  of 
representation  upon  such  a  basis  might  be  of  real  value.     The 
population   consisted   of   786   people,   representing   about   200 
families.    Heads  of  households  were  divided  into  groups  of  ten ; 
each  group  was  called  upon  to  hold  a  meeting  and  to  appoint 
its    chairman    and    vice-chairman.     Meetings    were    held    and 
chairman  and  vice-chairman  appointed.     The  chairmen  of  the 
sections  became  what  may  be  termed  the  executive  committee  of 
the  village.     They  held  frequent  meetings,  with  Major  Poore  as 


APPENDIX  I  307 

cliaii-man,  and  sometimes  with  the  friendly  presence  of  Alderman 
Lovibond,  of  Sah'sbury,  a  member  of  the  well-known  firm  of 
London  and  provincial  brewers.  Organised  village  in  embryo — 
what  would  be  evolved  ? 

In  1912  the  Duchess  of  Hamilton  wrote  {Maij  30,  1912)  to 
the  Daily  Mail  : 

"  If  you  will  permit  the  space,  I  would  like  to  add  my  quota 
to  the  striving  voices  of  those  who  are  endeavouring  to  help  the 
nation  to  reach  a  better  state  of  things  than  the  hopeless  tangle 
which  exist;:  at  present . 

"  A  great  deal  of  talk  is  heard  about  the  troubles  of  the  working- 
man — he  who  must  needs  be  the  rock  base  of  all  government,  but 
who  at  present  has  no  voice  in  it ;  and  it  is  said  that  he  is  discon- 
tented for  such  reasons  as  the  following : 

"1,  Because  he  does  work  which  is  dry  and  uninteresting. 
"2.  That  he  is  misrej)resented. 

"  3,  That  his  wages  are  not  high  enough   (he  should,  ac- 
cording to  some,  have  at  least  £2  a  week). 

"  I  do  not  propose  to  enter  into  the  first  of  these,  as  the 
differences  new  industrial  forces  have  brought  to  the  conditions 
of  labour  are  great.  My  own  opinion  on  the  matter  is  that  had 
every  workman  a  personal  interest  in  the  success  of  the  whole 
business  for  which  he  is  working,  as  m  the  old  guild  organisation, 
the  question  of  work  being  dry  would  not  arise. 

"  In  regard  to  the  second,  this  seems  to  be  just  where  the  whole 
trouble  lies.  No  man  of  the  working  class  is  really  represented 
as  he  should  be  in  Parliament. 

"  We  call  ourselves  a  democratic  government,  and  some  of  us 
think  we  have  continually  improved  our  method  of  government, 
whereas  the  truth  is  we  now  completely  waste  the  millions  of 
intellects  which  should  form,  as  they  did  in  that  ancient  form  of 
government,  the  Witenagemot,  the  base  of  a  firm  rock  of  govern- 
ment. 

"  The  Witenagemot,  or  gathering  of  wits,  may  best  be  described 
as  a  gigantic  pyramid  of  government,  the  base  of  which  was 
the  heads  of  every  family  in  the  kingdom,  and  the  apex  the  King. 

"  This  system  was  arrived  at  by  a  series  of  committees,  whose 
numbers  are  not  larger  than  about  ten  members. 

*'  Those  at  the  base  of  this  emblematic  pyramid  were  composed 
of  about  ten  neighbours,  heads  of  their  respective  families,  who 
lived  in  juxtaposition  to  each  other.  These  w^ere  called  the 
'  frankpledge ' ;  each  of  these  committees  chose  a  leading  man  or 
chairman,  and  these  chairmen  formed  the  next  committee,  ^hich 
was  called  the  '  tything.'  The  chairman  of  the  ty thing  formed 
the  committee  of  hundred,  and  so  on  till  the  committee  of  the 
Privy  Council,  in  whom  were  concentrated  the  minds  of  the 
whole  people  of  the  country. 


308  DAVID  URQUHART 

"  Of  course,  the  change  back  to  true  representation  would 
take  some  tmie  and  would  have  to  be  done  locally  by  people  of 
the  district  who  grasped  the  spirit  of  this  administration.  In 
a  small  May  it  has  been  done  with  complete  success  by  Major 
Poore,  who  in  1889  represented  a  district  in  Wiltshire  on  the 
County  Council.  He  employed  this  system  to  organise  each 
village  in  his  district,  and  whenever  there  were  matters  of 
importance  before  the  County  Council  he  called  a  meeting  of  the 
chairmen  of  the  villages  to  meet  him  and  laid  the  matters  before 
them.  In  their  turn  they  returned  to  their  villages,  and  were 
able,  by  calling  a  committee  of  the  village,  whose  members  in 
their  turn  called  one  of  the  tything,  and  so  on,  to  lay  the  local 
matters  before  every  man  in  the  villages. 

"  At  the  next  meeting  the  committee  of  village  chairmen  were 
able  to  give  Major  Poore  valuable  advice  on  each  matter  by  the 
light  of  the  collected  intelligence  of  their  villages. 

"  This  form  of  government,  once  set  going,  would  entail 
nothing  like  the  expense  of  the  present  one,  for  there  would 
be  far  more  economy  in  spending  the  public  funds,  each  district 
being  responsible  for  its  own  concerns. 

"  The  present  stress  of  living,  falling  on  the  poorest,  is  often 
lamented,  but  with  the  enormous  taxation  under  which  the 
country  groans,  how  can  it  well  be  otherwise  ?  For,  with  all 
the  assertions  to  the  contrary,  it  is  really  the  poor  who  have 
to  bear  life's  financial  burdens. 

"  The  third  cause  of  discontent  I  have  named  is  that  of  wages. 
In  order  to  demonstrate  that  prosperity  of  living  has  little  to  do 
with  actual  wage,  but  all  to  do  with  method  and  administration, 
I  will  explain  an  experiment  in  small  holdings  carried  out  by  Major 
Poore  in  the  village  of  Winterslow,  near  Salisbury,  and  which 
was  the  outcome  of  the  previously  described  administration. 

"  In  1892,  having,  as  already  described,  formed  a  committee 
of  the  village,  he  bought  a  small  farm  at  an  average  price  of  £10 
per  acre ;  this  he  had  revalued  by  the  local  village  surveyors  at  an 
average  price  of  £15.  A  notice  was  given  in  the  village  that  any- 
one requiring  land  might  apply  for  it  to  the  village  committee. 
Forty-five  men  applied  for  and  took  up  the  land.  These  forty- 
five  men  were  then  divided  into  committees  of  about  ten,  accord- 
ing to  their  locality,  and  the  chairman  of  these  committees  formed 
the  Land  Court  Committee,  which  was  presided  over  by  Major 
Poore.  To  facilitate  transfer,  the  land  was  leased  to  the  men 
for  2,000  years.  The  payment  took  fifteen  years  to  complete, 
and  is  all  paid  up  now.  The  sum  borrowed  for  the  purchase  was 
repaid,  and  the  surplus  formed  into  a  reserve  fund  for  the  credit 
of  the  Land  Court.  This  reserve  fund  can  be  borrowed  by  any 
member  of  the  Land  Court,  provided  all  the  other  members 
consent,  but  must  be  paid  back  with  interest. 

"  It  can  only  be  taken  out  altogether  and  used  for  an  object 


APPENDIX  I  309 

which  will  benefit,  not  the  greater  number,  but  every  member 
of  the  Land  Court.  I  would  now  draw  my  moral,  which  is  this — 
that  these  Wiltshire  labourers,  with  a  weekly  wage  of  not  more 
(some  less)  than  l6s.  per  week,  have — ■ 

"1.  Paid  for  their  leases. 
"2.  Built  about  thirty-seven  new  cottages. 
"3.  Have  a  reserve  fund  which  has  reached  the  sum  of 
£1,450. 

"  Also,  the  organiser,  Major  Poore,  has  run  the  whole  thing 
without  creating  dispute  among  members,  and  on  such  good 
business  lines  that  though,  of  course,  he  has  given  much  tune 
to  it,  he  has  not  lost  a  penny  himself,  and  has  greatly  benefited 
these  men — -keeping  for  them,  at  the  same  time,  their  entire 
self-respect.  Moreover,  he  has  had  no  State  aid  or  subscriptions, 
and  in  no  respect  has  this  experiment  been  a  matter  of  politics. 

"Note. —  Witena  is  the  genitive  of  wit,  wisdom;  gemots 
means  gathering." 

Winterslow  was  not  the  only  Land  Court  founded  by  Major 
Poore. 

In  1894  he  bought  another  farm  at  Bishopstone,  six  miles  the 
other  side  of  Salisbury.  This  was  a  strip  of  200  acres  extending 
four  miles,  and  most  unpromismg;  the  cost  was  about  the  same 
as  at  Winslow.  However,  on  calling  a  meeting  of  the  village, 
they  appeared  ready  to  take  up  the  land,  and  it  was  bought  and 
turned  out  a  success.  A  local  newspaper  gave  the  following 
account  of  the  dinner  given  by  the  landholders  to  Major  Poore, 
on  Tuesday,  April  12,  1910,  soon  after  the  final  payments  had 
been  made: 

"  Mr.  Barter,  as  sp'  skesman  for  the  landholders,  said :  '  Fifteen 
years  ago  you  made  your  appearance  in  Bishopstone,  and  I  don't 
think  anyone  has  regretted  the  day  you  came.  The  small 
holders  are  very  thankful  to  you  for  what  you  have  done  for 
them.  When  we  were  prosperous  no  one  was  more  glad  to  hear 
it  than  you;  when  we  had  a  difficult  year  you  were  always 
ready  with  advice  and  help. 

"  '  We  therefore  wish  to  present  you  with  an  Address,  in  the 
name  of  the  small  holders,  and  no  doubt  it  will  be  handed  down 
to  your  children  and  grandchildren.' 

"  Mr.  Barter  then  handed  to  Major  Poore  an  illuminated 
Address,  which  was  in  the  following  terms: 

"  '  To  Major  Poore,  oj  Old  Lodge,  Wilts. 

"  'We,  the  undersigned,  members  of  the  Bishopstone  Land- 
holders' Court,  desire  to  record  the  deep  sense  of  our  gratitude 
to  you  as  one  of  the  pioneers  of  the  System  of  Small  Holdings, 


310  DAVID  URQUHART 

for  having  by  j^our  energy  and  true  devotion  to  the  well-being 
of  the  parishes  in  the  country  districts  of  Wiltshire,  in  the  face 
of  many  difficulties  and  at  the  expenditure  of  much  time  and 
personal  trouble,  enabled  us  to  achieve  such  a  successful  result. 
It  is  now  fifteen  years  since  the  Bishopstone  Land  Court  was 
first  inaugurated.  Those  years  have  not  been  free  from  anxieties 
and  difficulties  for  us,  but  we  have  been  assisted  by  your  ready 
help  and  sympathy,  and  now  at  length  have  emerged  triumphant 
— 'the  last  payments  having  been  made — as  freeholders,  and  we 
can  take  our  place  amongst  those  who  have  a  substantial  stake 
in  the  well-being  of  the  country.'  " 


APPENDIX  II 

THE  TRAINING  OF  THE  COMMITTEES 

Conversation  of  a  Committeeivian  with  a  Fellow -Workman; 
SENT  TO  Mr.  Urquhart  for  Criticism 

Patriotism 

Friend.  Garibaldi  did  not  murder  people;  he  slew  them  in 
fair  fight. 

Committeeman.  So  did  Kidd  the  pirate,  but  they  hanged 
him  for  all  that;   and  why  shouldn't  Garibaldi  be  hanged  ? 

F.  He  wasn't  a  pirate. 

C.  It  was  your  word  not  ten  minutes  ago ;  and,  moreover,  your 
assertion  is  supported  by  international  law. 

F.  If  international  law  calls  such  acts  as  Garibaldi's  piracj^ 
then  international  law  is  bad,  and  ought  to  be  repealed. 

C.  I  knew  you  were  coming  to  that.  Did  you  ever  tumble 
off  a  house-roof  ? 

F.  No. 

C.  Did  you  ever  see  anyone  meet  with  an  accident  ? 

F.  Yes;    I  saw  a  slater. 

C.  Was  he  killed  ? 

F.  Yes. 

C.  What  killed  him  ? 

F.  Why,  the  fall  killed  him. 

C.  What  caused  him  to  fall  ? 

F.  He  lost  his  balance. 

C.  What  made  him  lose  his  balance  ? 

F.  What  irrelevant  questions  you  put ! 

C.  Patience,  and  answer  my  question:  What  caused  him  to 
lose  his  balance  ? 

F.  I  don't  know. 

C.  Did  you  ever  hear  of  Su-  Isaac  Newton  ? 


APPENDIX  11  Sit 

F.  Bo  you  think  I  am  an  ignoramus  ?  Oi  course  I  have  heard 
of  him. 

C.  Do  you  recollect  the  famous  anecdote  of  his  seeing  an  apple 
fall? 

F.  Of  course. 

C.  What  discovery  did  he  deduce  from  the  apple's  fall  ? 

F.  The  law  of  gravitation. 

C.  It  was,  then,  the  law  of  gravitation  which  brought  the 
apple  to  the  ground,  after  the  tendril  by  which  it  hung  was 
no  longer  strong  enough  to  counteract  the  operation  of  that 
law? 

F.  Decidedly  so. 

C.  Then,  when  your  slater  made  a  false  step,  the  law  of  gravi- 
tation not  only  made  him  lose  his  balance,  but  brought  him  to 
the  ground  ? 

F.  Yes,  in  that  way  of  putting  it. 

C.  That's  the  right  Avay,  I  humbly  submit;  but  we  won't 
go  into  that  at  present.  I  have  now  to  ask  you  whether  it  was 
not  the  law  of  gravitation  which  killed  your  slater  ? 

F.  Decidedly. 

C.  Then  I  should  say  the  law  of  gravitation  was  bad  for  that 
man,  and  those  who  depend  on  his  labour. 

F.  Certainly. 

C.  Did  they  ask  for  the  repeal  of  the  law  of  gravitation  ? 

F.  I  shan't  sit  here  to  be  made  a  fool  of.  How  could  they 
demand  the  repeal  of  a  law  of  nature  ? 

C.  You,  by  demanding  the  repeal  of  international  law,  are 
as  reasonable  as  they  would  be  if  they  clamoured  for  the  repeal 
of  the  laAv  of  gravitation. 

F.  Ah  !  but  the  law  of  nations  is  not  the  law  of  nature. 

C.  Did  you  ever  hear  of  Vattel  ? 

F.  Yes. 

C.  Who  was  he  ? 

F.  A  writer  on  international  law,  I  believe.  •» 

C.  A  great  authority  on  that  subject  ? 

F.  I  understand  so. 

C.  Deferred  to  by  all  the  statesmen  of  Europe  who  respected 
international  law  ? 

F.  I  have  always  imagined  so. 

C.  Then  it  is  probable  his  definition  of  the  law  of  nations  is 
the  correct  one  ? 

F.  Perhaps  it  is. 

C.  I  presume  you  will  believe  me  when  I  tell  you  what  that 
definition  was  ? 

F.  Oh  yes. 

C.  He  says  the  law  of  nations  is  simply  the  precepts  of  the 
laws  of  nature '  applied  to  States.  If  then,  you  accept  this 
definition  as  the  correct  one,  knowing  as  you  do  that  the  laws 


312  DAVID  URQUHART 

of  nature  are  immutable,  it  must  be  plain  to  you  that  the  law 
of  nations  is  equally  incapable  of  change. 

F.  Well,  I'll  not  admit  that  altogether.  Could  the  community 
of  nations  not  agree  to  pass  over  without  punishment  such  acts 
as  Garibaldi's,  when  done  with  disinterested  motives  ? 

C.  Do  you  believe  in  the  Ten  Commandments  ? 

F.  I  do. 

C.  The  Sixth  says,  "Thou  shalt  do  no  murder,"  and  the 
Eighth,  "Thou  shalt  not  steal."  Now,  if  the  community  of 
nations  agreed  to  pass  unpunished  the  crimes  forbidden  in  these 
Commandments,  would  that  resolution  repeal  the  Law  of  our 
Maker,  or  exempt  the  criminals  from  punishment  hereafter  ? 

F.  God  forbid  ! 

C.  Then,  if  such  is  your  conviction,  how  could  you  put  such  a 
frivolous  question  with  regard  to  the  law  of  nations  ?  If  they 
agreed  to  pass  unpunished  the  crime  of  piracy,  their  depraved 
resolution  would  not  repeal  the  law  of  nations;  they  would 
simply  cease  to  respect  it,  and  would  in  the  end  reap  their 
reward . 

F.  Well,  you  have  certainly  made  a  great  impression  on  me, 
but  I  find  it  hard  to  reconcile  myself  to  the  idea  of  punishing 
Garibaldi.     He  seems  such  a  true  patriot. 

C.  There  you  go  again.  What  do  you  mean  by  a  true 
patriot  ? 

F.  Oh,  I  can  easily  define  that.  One  who  loves  his  country, 
and  would  sacrifice  his  hfe  for  it. 

C.  Of  what  province  of  the  kingdom  of  Sardinia  was  Garibaldi 
a  native  ? 

F.  Nice. 

C.  Does  Nice  belong  to  Sardinia  now  ? 

F.  No;  it  was  annexed  to  France. 

C.  Sold,  in  fact  ? 

F.  Yes;  it  was  a  disgraceful  affair. 

C.  Did  Garibaldi  take  up  arms  against  his  monarch  for  destroy- 
ing the  independence  of  his  native  land  ? 

F.  Well,  no. 

C.  Then,  why  on  earth  call  him  a  patriot  ? 

F.  Now,  look  here:  I  am  not  going  to  the  witness-box  again, 
so  good-night. 

{The  Free  Press,  May  1,  1861.) 


APPENDIX  III  313 


APPENDIX  III 


POSTULATUM  B.:  ARGUMENTUM  DE  RE  MILITARI 

ET  BELLO 

QuuM  in  hisce  luctuosissimis  temporibus,  sicut  in  diebus  Noe, 
diminutge  sint  veritates  a  filiis  hominum,  et  multi  jam  non 
regnum  Dei  et  justitiam  ejus,  sed  quse  sua  sunt,  quserant,  videre  est 
et  imprimis  in  iis  quae  ad  Rem  Militarem  spectant,  omnem  aequi- 
tatem  conculcari  et  omnia  jura  permisceri.  Itaque,  dum  quidam 
hac  tristi  rerum  conditione  commoti,  sed  non  secundum  scientiam 
sanctam  sentientes,  somniant  tempus  futurum  quo  homines, 
licet  Deum  non  secuturi,  non  tamen  amplius  ulla  bella  videbunt, 
alii  e  contra  bella  qusecumque,  vel  potius  strages  et  homicidia 
magna  et  horribilia  reputant  licita ;  ita  ut  et  nocendi  cupiditas,  et 
ulciscendi  crudelitas,  impacatus  atque  implacabilis  animus, 
feritas  rebellandi,  libido  dominandi,  et  si  qua  similia,  non  jam 
culpentur  in  bello.  Hinc  illae  immensae  multitudines  et  exercitus 
perpetuo  armatarum  nationum,  quasi  perpetuo  inter  se  hostilia 
parantium.  Compertum  igitur  habemus  et  eos  qui  bella  jubent 
aut  paranl ,  et  eos  quibus  haec  jubentur,  non  jam  amplius  imperare 
et  obedire  juste,  sicut  praecipit  ordo  naturalis,  sed  oblitos  esse 
aut  parvi  pendere  hoc  grave  et  quidem  inter  homines  gravissimum 
mandatum  Domini,  olim  per  Moysen  servum  suum  dicentis: 
Non  occides.  Hand  minus  oblivioni  vel  despectui  dederunt  et 
antiqua  dicta  Sanctorum  Patrum,  et  praescripta  Conciliorum 
a  Sancta  Sede  probatorum,  necnon  et  ipsorum  summorum 
Pontificum  documenta  atque  judicia,  quibus  constat  nunquam 
in  Eccles'a  sancta  Dei  damnabiles  non  fuisse  habitos  tanti 
prsecepti  in  hac  parte  transgressores.  .  .  . 

Capitulum  Primijm. 

De  Solemnitatibus  Belli. 

Jus  Gentium  circa  Rem  Militarem  et  Bellum  ante  omnia 
requirit  Solemne  Belli.  Hinc  bellum  injustum  est,  ac  proinde 
homicidiis  et  latrociniis  j^lenum,  quod  non  ex  edicto  et  praeedicto 
geritur,  id  est  quod  non  fuerit  ante  omnia  parti  adversae  indictum 
ac  publice  denuntiatum.  Denuntiatione  autem  belli  intelligitur 
gravaminum  objectorum  publica  declaratio,  cum  legitimaB  et 
competentis  reparationis  aut  satisfactionis  petitione,  parti 
adversae  per  legatos  solemniter  facta.  Indictionis  vero  nomine 
intelligere  fas  est  edictum  quasi  judiciarium  quo  publice  denun- 
tiantur    belli    causae,    simul    ac    partis    adversae    contumacia. 


314  DAVID  URQUHART 

Dominus  eniin  in  veteri  Testamento  jussifpopulo  suo  dicens: 
"  Si  quando  accesseris  ad  expugnandam  civitatem,"  et  agebatur 
etiam  de  civitatibus  ab  ipso  Domino  rejectis  et  damnatis,— 
"offeres  ei  primum  pacem;"  et  legitur  in  libro  Judicum  filios 
Israel  misisse  nuntios  ad  omnem  tribum  Benjamin,  ut  traderent 
viros  de  Gabaa  ad  satisfaciendum  injurise  illatse,  antequam 
bellum  inferrent.  Quicumque  igitur  sive  princeps,  sive  dux  aut 
miles  aut  alius  bellum  suscipere  aut  in  eo  participare,  hisce 
omissis  solemnitatibus,  prsesumpserit,  se  sciat  mortaliter  peccare, 
et  quidem  in  genere  homicidii,  tanquam  auctorem  vel  complicem 
in  solidum  omnium  csedium  quae  in  tali  bello  vel  potius  impia 
strage  fierent,  atque  insuper  irregularitatem  ex  delicto,  id  est 
formalis  homicidii  causa,  incurrisse,  secundum  decreta  Patrum 
ac  Summorum  Pontificum  sancita. 


Capitulum  Secundum. 

De  necessitate  et  legitimis  causis  ad  helium  jusium  requisitis. 

Quia  vero  pacem  habere  debet  voluntas,  bellum  necessitas,  et 
bellum  vere  bellua  est  quae  omnia  devorat,  ideo  non  licet  absque 
gravi  causa,  et  nisi  vera  et  quasi  extrema  necessitate  juste 
imperante,  suscipere  bellum.  Testatur  enim  Nicolaus  Papa  in 
Responsis  ad  Consulta  Bulgarorum,  omni  tempore  armis  abstinen- 
dum,  nisi  necessitas  urgeat  atque  inevitabilis  importunarum 
rcrum  adsit  concurrentia.  Abhorreant  ergo  Christiani  principes 
et  populi  a  falsis  bellorum  causis,  sen  potius  a  suggestionibus 
Diaboli,  qui  ab  mitio  homicida  erat.  Olli  non  semel  aurem 
praebuere  cseci  homines,  quum  ad  bellandum  se  motos  prjedicarent, 
nunc  propter  vanam  gloriam,  sen,  ut  aiunt,  jDrsestigium  nationale, 
sub  cujus  vocabuli  fumo  latet  superbia  vitse,  apud  Joannem 
damnata,  peccatum  Draconis  qui  pugnabat  cum  Angelis  ejus; 
nunc  propter  imperii  extendendi  vel  divitiis  augendi  desiderium, 
quod  non  est  aliud  nisi  concupiscentia  oculorum,  radix  omnium 
malorum  cupiditas,  et  avaritia,  ab  Apostolo  dicta  idolorum 
servitus ;  nunc  etiam  propter  invidiam  erga  cssteras  nationes  vel 
principes,  furorem  hunc  Cainicum,  quern  semper  abominabitur 
Dominus,  qui  solus  est  jure  semulator  justissimus,  et  cujus  nomen 
privative  vocatur  Zelotes.  Etenim  hsec  eadem  peccata  eeque 
ac  magis  detestanda  sunt  in  Nationibus  et  Guberniis,  quse  in 
hominibus  privatis  damnantur.  At  vere  horrendum  esset  dicere 
insontes  hommcs,  qui,  sive  ut  ostentarent  se  esse  validos  pugiles, 
aut  gladiatores,  sive  ut  aliena  raperent,  sive  ut  invidiee  cederent, 
proximos  privata  auctoritatc  occidere  meditarentur.  Igitur 
non  moveatur  unquam  bellum,  nisi  de  necessario  repetundis 
Juribus,  vel  hostium  injuste  invadentium  propulsandorum 
causa. 


APPENDIX  m  315 

Capitulum  Tertium. 

De  officiis  et  obedientia  Ducum  ac  Militum. 

Secundum  Divi  Augustini  sententiam,  ad  malos  jure  puniendos, 
bella  gerenda  ab  ipsis  bonis  suscipiuntur,  quum  in  eo  humanarum 
rerum  ordine  inveniuntur,  ubi  eos  vel  jubere  tale  aliquid  vel 
in  talibus  obedire  juste  ordo  ipse  constringit.  Sciant  ergo  Duces 
ac  Milites  se  militare  debere  tanquani  bonos  vu'os,  Deo  Sacra- 
mento Baptismi  ligatos,  ac  proinde  juramentum  seu  quod  vocant 
sacramentum  Militia?  non  adversari  legi  Christian83,  nee  unquam 
adversari  posse,  Hinc  nihil  in  bello  justo  agant  contra  Jus 
Gentium;  immunitates  personarum  et  rerum  Deo  sacrarum, 
necnon  ruricolarum  et  operariorum  artibus  pacis  incumbentium, 
feminarum,  puerorum,  senum  et  omnium  innocentium  agnoscant, 
et  rite  observent;  se  esse  justitise  servos  ac  ministros,  non  autem 
crudelitatis,  nee  cupiditatis,  nee  vanse  glorias,  meminerint; 
contenti  stipendiis  suis,  neminem  concutientes,  legitime  in  suo 
quisque  gradu  superioribus  suis  obedientiam  prsestent. 

Capitulum  Quartum. 

De  Auctontate  et  Consilio  in  hellis  suscipiendis  et  forma  Judicii 

de  Justitia  Belli.  . 

Quoad  bellum  suscipiendum  Auctoritas  et  Consilium  non 
apud  cives  singulatim  sumptos,  sed  apud  Nationes  et  earum 
Principes  et  Gubernia  est.  Nam  cives  singuli,  si  Isesi  fuerint, 
jure  possunt  ad  superiores  appellare  vel  recurrere,  quin  inter 
se  aut  cum  alienigenis  pugnent;  et  ordo  naturalis,  mortaliura 
paci  accommodatus,  requirit  ut  ita  se  Pes  Militaris  habeat. 
Verumtamen  si  in  Ecclesia  Dei  cautum  est  ne  episcopus  absque 
Consilio  aliquid  agat,  pari  saltem  norma  circa  tanti  momenti 
rem  Nationes  seu  earum  Prmcipes  et  Gubernia  uti  necesse 
perspicitur.  Quapropter,  ut  justitia  et  justitise  forma  in  bellis 
suscipiendis  caute  servetur,  opus  est  ut  leges  cujusque  regni 
et  populi  statuant  viros  non  tantum  peritos,  sed  et  maxime 
probos  consulendos  esse,  a  quibus  secundum  Jus  Gentium  et 
leges  evangelicas,  necnon  et  canonicas  seu  Pontificias,  causarum 
belli  justitia  prudenter  examinetur  et  libere  declaretur.  Nam 
Jure  disceptare,  est  juste  judicare;  et  non  est  judex,  si  non  est 
in  eo  Justitia. 

VoTUM  Synodi. 

I.  Universi  compertum  est,  quot  quantaque  scelera  et  mala 
tarn  spiritualia  quam  temporalia  novissimis  prsesertim  hisce 
temporibus  ab  iniustis  bellis  dimanaverint,  ita  ut  fundamentales 
societatis  humanae  conditiones  subverti  videantur. 


316  DAVID  URQUHART 

II.  Hsec  eadem  calamitas  Orientem  quoque  invadit  miserrimis 
suis  effectibus,  et  ad  gentem  nostram  Ecclesiamque,  et  ad 
universam  in  Oriente  rem  Catholicam  teternma  exinde  damna 
oriuntur,  quibus,  ut  rem  pro  veritate  dicamus,  obnoxium  quoque 
est  providissimum  paternumque  nostrum  Gubernium,  cui  gratum 
habet  animum  tota  Armena  Hierarchia,  praesertim  pro  religiosa 
libertate,  qua  ipsa  fruitur. 

III.  Usee  autem  calamitosa  conditio  magis  noxia  evadere 
dignoscitur,  eo  quod  sit  teterrimus  effectus  perversorum 
quorumdam  principiorum,  quibus  iustitia  et  iura  gentium 
conculcantur. 

IV.  Hinc  non  amplius  iustitia,  sed  ius  fortioris,  aufc  secretarum 
molimina  societatum  in  humanam  societatem  ubique  grassantur. 

V.  Hinc  principia  quoque  Christianse  moralitatis  sus  deque 
vertuntur  per  illas  neotericas  perversasque  doctrrnas,  quas 
nonnullse  ephemerides,  factse  iam  impietatis  instruraenta,  et 
secretarum  societatum  conatus  per  omnes  regiones  excitare 
atque  propagare  nituntur,  et  iam  praeruptus  tantse  impietatis 
torrens  nostras  quoque  plagas  invadit. 

VI.  Speciatim  vero  idea  preecepti  Decalogi,  "Non  occides  " 
cuius  custos  et  interpres  est  ipsa  Sancta  Catholica  Ecclesia, 
propter  iniusta  bella  tam  vitiata  est  in  mente  populi,  ut  inter 
bella  iusta  ac  iniustas  csedes  stragemque  iam  omne  discrimen 
ablatum  videatur,  nequeinter  utrumque  populus  discernerc  valeat. 

VII.  Sed  quia  Christus  Dominus  noster,  cum  suam  in  terra 
instituit  Ecclesiam,  illi  soli  non  modo  Divinae  suae  revelationis 
tradidit  depositum,  sed  et  infallibilis  magisterii  auctoritatem 
usque  ad  consummationem  saeculi  duraturam,  ncque  per  gentium 
vel  regionum  amplitudinem  limitandum,  eius  officium  est, 
omnibus  gentibus  et  nationibus  iustitiam  ac  moralom  Evangelii 
legem  praedicare  ac  docere,  et  haec  inerrabilis  magisterii  inviola- 
bilis  auctoritas  in  persona  Petri  legitimis  eius  Successoribus  est 
concredita. 

VIII.  Quamvis  autem  zelantissimi  Ecclesiae  Ministri  vocem 
suam  extollentes,  perversa  haec  principia  impugnare  iusque 
gentium  ac  sacra  moralitatis  principia  propugnare  et  bella  iusta 
inter  ac  caedem  stragemque  discrimina  populos  edocere  pro  viribus 
conentur,  attamen  inter  clamores  impietatis  vox  zelantissimorum 
Pastorum  iam  fernie  extingui  videtur. 

IX.  Quare  Patres  huius  Synodi,  miserrimum  hoc  spectaculum 
a  longe  non  sine  lacrymis  aspicientes,  et  horum  principiorum, 
qucB  omnia  delere  minantur,  quaeque  libertatis,  nationalitis  et 
similium  fallaciura  nominum  sub  velo  abscondita  sunt,  giganteos 
Orientem  versus  impetus  conspicientes,  apprime  intellexerunt, 
quod  eo  magis  aggressiones  istae  noxiae  sunt  nobis,  quo  debilior 
est  conditio  nostra. 

X.  Quapropter  haac  omnia  in  hac  nationali  Synodo  contem- 
plantes  et  in  tribunali  iustitiae  perpendentes,  Patres  Synodales 


APPENDIX  III  317 

vocem  suam  ad  Cathedram  Romanam  et  Tibi  Vicario  Doiniiii 
nostri  lesu  Christi,  cui  concredita  est  suprema  mfallibilis  magis- 
terii  auctoritas,  extollunt,  et  his  prsesentibus  scriptis  Synodalibus 
consilium  suae  mentis  Tibi  proponere  festinant,  et  Te  Christi 
Vicarium  adprecantur,  ut  si  opportunum  Tibi  videbitur,  gravis 
hsec  et  valde  necessaria  quaestio  imminenti  Qj]cumenico  pro- 
ponatur  Concilio,  et  ius  gentium  solemniter  ibidem  proclametur 
atque  tyrannica  iuris  fortioris  principia  penitus  condemnentur, 
et  Divini  praecepti  "Non  occides"  vera  notio  omnibus 
praedicetur,  bellaque  iniusta  vere  caadera  stragemque  constituere 
denuo  confirm etur.  Hinc  et  solemniter  iusti  belli  conditiones 
iuxta  canonicum  ius,  quod  ubique  proculcatur,  ab  eodera 
(Ecumenico  Concilio  infallibili  auctoritate  pubhcentur.  Et  quia 
universa  haec  impietas,  quaa  omnia  destruere  minatur,  necessario 
exigit,  ut  in  applicatione  principiorum  Christianae  moralitatis  et 
canonum  Ecclesiae,  permanens  et  incessans  veritatis  oraculum 
quocumque  vocem  suam  extendere,  omniumque  conscientiam 
tutam  reddere  possit :  Quapropter  haec  ipsa  Synodus  illud  valde 
necessarium  esse  reverenter  ac  humiliter  credit,  quod  (Ecumenico 
Concilio,  si  ita  Tibi  videbitur,  proponatur,  ut  apud  Sedem  Petri 
permanens  supremumque  ex  omnium  gentium  iuris  peritis 
compositum  Tribunal  constituatur,  quod  in  verbo  belli  examinet 
et  perpendat,  utrum  mutuae  societatum  relationes  cum  moralibus 
Christianae  Religionis  legibus  conveniant;  ac  nomine  Sedis 
Petri  defensor  iurium  gentis  constituatur,  cuius  vox  iuridica  ab 
infallibili  Tua  auctoritate,  qui  Vicarius  es  Christi,  confirmata, 
canon  seu  regula  publicae  constituatur  conscientiae ;  quo  fiet 
etiam  ut  humana  societas  ab  imminentis  ruinae  praecipitio 
erepta,  quo  perversa  praesentis  temporis  socialia  principia 
trahendo  deiicere  earn  minantur,  tandem  aliquando  quiescat; 
et  Gubernia  ab  immani  ilia  necessitate  liberentur  ingentes 
perpetuo  alendi  exercitus,  qui  cum  magno  sint  mcitamento 
socialis  corruptionis  morum,  innumeras  quoque  aerumnas 
teterrimosque  effectus  progignunt,  populisque  iam  intolerabile 
pondus  omnino  efficiuntur. 

II 

The  Petition  of  English  Protestants  to  the  Holy  Father  for  the  restoration  of 
the  Law  of  Nations  is  to  be  found  on  page  366  of  tlie  Acta  et  Decreta  SS.  Ccmcilii 
Vaticami. 

"  A  Letter  from   Certain   English   Protestants   to    the 
Supreme    Pontiff,  in    which    they    intreat    him    to 

UNDERTAKE     THE     CHARGE      OF     GUARDING     THE     LaW     OF 

Nations  in  regard  to  those  Nations  not  yet  civilised. 

"  Having  long  sought,  but  in  vain,  to  induce  the  prelates  and 
ecclesiastics  of  the  divers  communions  to  which  we  belong  to 
resist  the  acts,  practices  and  maxims  contrary  to  the  Law  of 


318  DAVID  URQUHART 

Nations,  or  at  least  to  denounce  them,  we  address  ourselves  to 
Your  Holiness,  in  the  hope  that  you  will  take  means  to  put  an 
end  to  this  public  disorder,  and  that,  in  the  measures  you  take, 
you  may  understand  the  particular  errors  which  we  submit  to  you. 

"  The  ancient  relations  established  by  conquest  and  adminis- 
tration which  have  given  Great  Britain  command  over  regions 
situated  outside  Europe,  inhabited  by  Brahmins,  Buddhists, 
Hindus,  Mussulmans  and  Pagans,  have  endangered  in  these 
far-off  regions  the  integrity  of  the  English,  by  exposing  them 
to  more  than  ordinary  temptations. 

"  Treaties  have  been  violated,  blood  has  been  unjustly  shed, 
outrages  of  various  sorts  have  been  perpetrated  on  innocent 
persons. 

"  To  justify  these  guilty  actions,  a  maxim  has  been  introduced 
and  even  publicly  proclaimed  by  the  highest  political  authority 
of  modern  times.  Sir  Robert  Peel,  declaring  that  Christians  are 
not  subject  to  the  Law  of  Nations,  nor  to  the  precepts  of  justice 
in  their  dealings  with  those  who  are  a  danger  to  Christianity  or 
civilisation. 

"  We  are  assured  that  the  Fathers  of  the  Catholic  Church,  the 
Popes  and  the  Councils,  have  condemned  and  denounced  often 
and  with  authority  such  maxims  as  being  contrary  to  the  Will 
of  God  and  to  the  laws  of  man,  and  exposing  all  those  who 
execute  them  or  take  part  in  them  to  being  banished  from  the 
Christian  Communion, 

"  Seeing  that  any  State,  however  powerful  it  may  be,  cannot 
be  safe  while  such  practices  reign  in  it ;  that  any  man,  however 
pious  he  be,  is  no  better  than  an  infidel  who  in  such  a  matter 
cannot  distinguish  between  good  and  evil ;  seeing  that  all  bodies 
of  Christians  have  ceased  in  this  respect  to  teach  the  Law  of 
God,  we  appeal  to  Your  Holiness  to  declare  anew,  whether  by 
virtue  of  your  own  authority  or  through  the  Council  which  is 
about  to  assemble,  that  Law  and  those  maxims  which  were 
declared  and  imposed  of  old  by  the  See  which  Your  Holiness 
occupies  to-day,  so  that  they  may  become  a  guide  for  the  conduct 
of  those  of  our  compatriots  who  belong  to  that  Church  of  which 
Your  Holiness  is  the  Head,  as  well  as  a  light  for  the  whole 
world. 

"  We  have  learnt  that  Your  Holiness  has  refused  absolution 
and  the  consolations  of  religion  to  those  who,  being  impenitent, 
have  repudiated,  by  a  pretended  act  of  their  own  will,  the  duties 
of  allegiance  towards  our  Sovereign,  and  who  do  not  consider 
themselves  guilty  of  a  crime  when  they  commit  illegal  acts  in 
obedience  to  the  orders  of  those  to  whom  they  have  sworn  blind 
obedience. 

"  We  pray  Your  Holiness  to  treat  in  like  manner  those  Kings 
and  their  Ministers  who  at  this  time  are  not  controlled  by  any 
tribunal  nor  liable  to  any  punishment," 


APPENDIX  IV  319 

ArPE]NDIX  IV 

A  LIST  OF  SOME  OF  DAVID  URQUHART'S  WRITINGS. 

Political,  Socla.l,  and  Historical. 

1 833  ■  J'grkey  and  its  Resources  (5th  edition,  1835). 

1 834 '.  England,  France,  Russia  and  Turkey.     PampETet . 

1835.  The  PortfoHo;    or,  A  Collection   of  State  Papers,   etc., 

illustrative  of  the  History  of  our  own  Times.     6  vols. 

December,  1835-1837. 
1839^  The  Spirit  of  the  Easl^__2  vols., 

1843.  The  Portfolio.    New  Series.     6  vols,     1843-1844. 

1844.  Reflections  on  Thoughts  and  Things. 

1845.  Wealth  and  Want;    or,  Taxation  as  influencing  Private 

Riches  and  Public  Liberty. 

1849.  The  Pillars  of  Hercules.     2  vols. 

1853.  Progress  of  Russia  in  the  West,  North,  and  South. 

1855.  Constitutional     Remedies.     Handbook     for     the     Com- 
mittees. 

1855.  Familiar  Words  as  affecting  the  Character  of  Englishmen 

and  the  Fate  of  England 

1856.  The  Free  Press.    First  issued  as  a  penny  weekly  paper, 

then  as  a  monthly  periodical.     Editor:  Collet  Dobson 

Collet.     1856-1866. 
1866.  The  Diplomatic  Reviev/.     (The  Free  Press  was  so  renamed.) 

A  quarterly  journal.     1866-1877. 
1860.    The  Lebanon.    2  vols. 

Also  innumerable  pamphlets,  critiques,  and  reviews. 

Writings  more  directly  concerning  the  Council. 

1874.  The  Four  Wars  of  the  French  Revolution.    This  came 

out  first  in  the  Diplomatic  Review,  and  was  reprinted  as 

a  pamphlet. 
1869.  Appeal  of  a  Protestant  to  the  Pope  to  restore  the  Law 

of  Nations.     The  same  in  Latin  and  French. 
1869.  Effect  on  the  World  of  the  Restoration  of  the  Canon  Law; 

being  a  vindication  of  the  Catholic  Church  against  a 

Priest. 
1871.  Le  Patriarche  Hassoun ;  Le  Schisme  Armenien  et  le  Concile 

(Ecumenique. 
1871.  Sequel  to  the  Appeal  of  a  Protestant  to  the  Pope:    The 

Military  Oath  and  Christianity. 
1871.  La  Desolation  de  la  Chretiente. 

Many  pamphlets  in  French  appeared  about  this  time ;  also 
a  French  edition  of  the  Diplomatic  Review,  which 
began  in  1868  and  was  continued  till  1875. 


320  DAVID  URQUHART 

CHRONOLOGICAL  LIST  OF  THE  PRINCIPAL  EVENTS  IN 
*      DAVID  URQUHART' S  LIFE. 

1805.  Born. 

18L3.  Taken  abroad. 

182L  Entered  at  St.  John's  College,  Oxford. 

1827.  Takes  part  in  the  Greek  War  of  Independence  under  Lord 

Cochrane.  First  Lieutenant  on  Frigate //^eZ^as.  Severely 
wounded. 

1828.  Leaves  the  Greek  Navy. 

At  Samos  with  Colleti,  the  Governor  of  the  island. 

1829.  Immediately  after  the  Treaty  of  Adrianople  goes  to  Con- 

stantinople. Introduced  to  the  Sultan;  sent  by  the 
Sultan  with  his  own  guards  and  horses  on  a  geological 
expedition  to  Thrace. 

1830.  For   a   few  months  at  the  Turkish  Court.     Returns   to 

England  through  Albania. 

1831.  Letters  to  the  Courier  on  the  Eastern  Question  which 

attracts  the  attention  of  William  IV. 
Introduced  to  Sir  Stratford  Canning,  and  sent  on  secret 
mission  to  the  Balkans. 

1832.  Returns  to  England  via  Italy,  Hungary  and  Germany. 

1833.  Articles  on  European  Commerce,  particularly  the  German 

Customs  Union,  which  results  in  his  being  sent  on  a 
second  secret  mission,  this  time  a  commercial  one. 
Publishes  Turkey  and  its  Resources. 

1834.  Preparing  commercial  treaty  between  England  and  Turkey. 

In  the  East  for  the  second  time. 

Intimacy  with  Lord  Ponsonby. 

Visit  to  Circassia. 

Publishes  England,  France,  Russia,  and  Turkey. 

1835.  During  the  whole  of  this  year  a  flood  of  articles  on  the 

Eastern  and  Russian  Questions,  either  written  or 
inspired  by  him,  appears  in  all  the  principal  periodicals 
and  newspapers. 

Appointment  as  First  Secretary  to  Embassy  at  Con- 
stantinople (Commission  gazetted  October  3,  1835). 

Portfolio  issued  from  December,  1835,  to  June,  1836. 

1836.  Leaves  England  for  Constantinople  in  company  with  Sir 

John  McNeil,  travelling  via  Munich,  Vienna  and 
Wallachia. 

1837.  Recalled. 

1838.  Government  issues  commercial  treaty  with  Turkey. 
Urquhart  begins  his  crusade. 

Letters  to  The  Times,  Era,  Morning  Advertiser,  etc.,  etc. 
Midlands  and  North  taken  by  storm.  Invited  by  city 
magnates  to  a  public  dinner  at  Glasgow.  First  public 
speech .   Chambers  of  Commerce  started  bj'  his  influence. 


APPENDIX  IV  321 

1839.  Death  of  his  mother. 
Publishes  the  Spirit  of  the  East. 
Diplomatic  Transactions  in  Central  Asia 
Exposition  of  the  Boundary  Differences . 
First  contact  with  Chartists. 

1840.  Attacks  Chartists'  strongholds;    captures  man}''  of  their 

leaders  by  preachmg  international  justice  in  lieu  of 
class  warfare.    Forms  converted  Chartists  into  *'  As^ 
sociations  for  the  Study  of  Diplomatic  Documents." 
Gathers  round  him  a  large  circle  of  friends. 
Private  mission  to  the  French  people  on  the  occasion  of 
the  treaty  of  July  15. 
1841-1846.  Political    knight-errantry    in    France,    Spain,    and 
Morocco. 
Multifarious  literary  activities  amongst  ^hich  the  most 
prominent  are — 

Portfolio,  New  Series,  October,  1843-1844. 
Beflections  on  Thoughts  and  Things. 
Wealth  and  Want. 
1847.  Elected   by   an   overwhelming   majority   as   Member    of 
Parliament  for  Stafford. 

1849.  Serious  breakdown  in  health. 

Visit  to  Syria  and  in  the  East;  collects  materials  for  The 

Lebanon. 
Meets  the  Abbe  Hamilton,  who  is  on  a  mission  from  Rome 

to  the  East.     From  him  gains  an  insight  into  Uniate 

Question. 

1850.  Further  visit  to  Constantinople. 
Pillars  of  Hercules  published. 

1853.  Russian  Army  mobilised. 

Urquhart  begins  to  preach  against  the  coming  war,  re- 
forms the  li'oreign  Affairs  Committees  and  starts  many 
new  ones. 

1854.  War  with  Russia  declared  in  March. 
Marriage  to  Harriet  Angelina  Fortescue. 
General  Election;  declines  to  stand. 

Sheffield  Free  Press,  under  the  editorship  of  Ironside,  be- 
comes the  Urquhart  organ.     Eventually  transferred  to 
London. 
Occupied  with  organisation  of  Foreign  Affairs  Committees. 
Great  meetings  held  in  all  the  chief  towns  in  England 
185G.  Begins  his  twenty  years'  crusade  against  the  "  Declaration 
of  Paris." 
Turkish  baths  established  in  England. 
1856-1864.  Work  of  the  Foreign  Affairs  Committees  on  current 
events   (Indian   Mutmy,   Chinese  War,    Polish   Insur- 
rection, American  Civil  War,  Italian  War  of  Liberation, 
etc.)  under  his  mspiration  and  guidance. 

21 


322  DAVID  URQUHART 

1804.  Breakdown    in    health    necessitates    residence    abroad — 
visits  Paris,  Rouen,  Nice,  Genoa. 
Syllabus  of  Pius  IX.  issued. 
1865.  Chalet  des  Melezes  built. 

1807.  Pius  IX.  announces  to  the  Bishops  assembled   for  the 
centenary  of  St.  Peter  his  intention  of  summoning  a 
General  Council. 
Short   visit  to   England.     Tour   of   the  Foreign   Affairs 
Committees  with  a  view  of  preparing  them  for  his  appeal 
to  the  Pope. 
1867-1869.  Work  in  ^Dreparation  for  the  appeal  to  the  Pope. 
Mr.  and  Mrs.  Urquhart  go  to  Rome,  November,  1869. 
Vatican  Council  opened  December  8,  1869. 

1870.  In  Rome  till  June. 
Franco-Prussian  War. 

1871.  Diplomatic  relations  established  between  the  Vatican  and 

the  Porte,  due  to  his  exertions. 

1872.  Desolation,  de  la  Chretiente  published. 

Attempts  at  the  establishment  in  France  of  a  National 
Tribunal  to  decide  questions  of  peace  and  war. 
1874.  Visit  to  England. 

Tour  of  Foreign  Affairs  Committees. 

Great  speech  at  Keighley. 

Reviews  origin  and  work  of  Committees. 

Successfully  resists  the  designs  of  Russia  to  gain  England's 
active  participation  in  the  Congress  of  Brussels. 

1876.  Journey  to  Egypt  in  a  vain  search  for  health. 

1877.  Dies  at  Naples,  Zvla}^  17. 


INDEX 


Aali,  Pasha,  Grand  Vizier,  247,  285 

Adrianople,  Peace  of,  8,  9,  44,  55 

Afghan  War,  142  ff. 

Albania,  44,  45 

Alexander  I.  of  Russia,  6,  7 

American  Civil  War,  134,  135,  152 

Angelis,  Cardinal  de,  263 

Anstey,  Thomas  Chisholm:  impeaches 
Lord  Palmerston,  121;  account  of, 
143  note ;  introduces  Urquhart  to 
Cardinal  Capaccini,  185;  connection 
of,  with  Oxford  Movement,  226 

Antonelli,  Cardinal,  254,  255 

Armellini,  Pere,  275 

Armenian  Schism,  276  and  note 

Armenian  Synod,  249,  258  ff. 

Armenians,  257 

Arras,  209 

Associations  for  investigating  Foreign 
Affairs:  mismanagement  of,  116; 
reasons  for  failure  of,  117  fi.  Sec 
also  Committees  for  the  Investiga- 
tion of  Diplomatic  Documents 

Attwood,  Charles,  81,  95,  103,  107, 
135 

Attwood,  Thomas,  72 

Aymond,  Pere,  232 

Azarian,  Mgr.,  249,  204 

Backhouse,  53 

Barroll,  180 

Barrot,  Odilon,  115,  116 

Beaumont,  Somerset,  62 

Behrens,  24,  25 

Bell  family,  57 

Bell,  George,  61 

Benbow,  William,  94 

Benthara,  Jeremy,  21,  34,  35 

Bentinck,  Cavendish,  155 

Benyouski,  89  note,  98  note 

Beust,  Count,  211 

Birmingham     Mutual     Improvement 

Society,  155  JJ. 
Bishopstone,  Landholders'  Court,  309 
Bismarck,  Count  von,  5,  1:51   note 
Black,  Dr.,  71 
Bod  nham,  de  la  Barre,  256 


Bonnechose,   Cardinal  de,   263,   264, 

269,  270 
Booth,  John,  147 
Breda,    Comte    de:    in    Rome,    263; 

proposes    a   Ligue  des   Faihle.^   to 

Aali  Pasha,  285,  286;   on   French 

desire  for  revenge,  292 
Bright,  John,  146 
British  and  Foreign  Iteview,  45  note 
Brun,  Lucien,  290 
Brussels,     Congress     of,     142,      160, 

161 
Bucher,  Lothair,  130  note,  133 
Burdett,  Sir  Francis,  62  and  note 
Bums,  Sir  Alexander,  143,  144,  145 

Cabet,  French  Deputy,  111 

Canning,  George,  9,  10 

Canning,  Sir  Stratford,  45 

Canon  Law,  142,  208,  209 

Capaccini,  Cardinal,  22,  185  ff. 

Capalti,  Cardinal,  275 

Capodistrias,  44 

Cardo,  William,  Chartist:  gives  his 
adherence  to  Urquhart,  85  ff. :  aids 
Urquhart' s  campaign  among  work- 
ing men,  92  ff.;  gains  adherence  of 
Richards  for  Urquhart,  97;  abuse 
of,  by  former  associates,  101 ;  speaks 
at  meeting  at  Carlisle,  105,  10(1 

Cargill,  William,  81,  95,  96,  117 

Catholic  Church,  194,  212,  21 «  //. 

Catholic  Emancipation  Act,  223 

Catholic  Magazine,  222  note 

Caucasus,  o.),  68 

Cavour,  194,  201  note 

Central  Democratic  Association,  84 

Chalet  des  Melezes,  205,  206  note,  322 

Charnowski,  General,  110 

Chinese  War,  13,  147  ff. 

Circassia,  54  //.,  214 

Circassians,  22,  ">."> 

Cobbett,  James,  94 

Cobbett,  William,  282 

Cockrane,  Lord,  34 

Coletti,  Governor  of  Samos,  114  and 
note. 


32.", 


324 


DAVID  URQUHART 


Collet,  Charles  Dobson,  136  and  note 

Collet,  Pere,  233 

Committees  for  the  investigation  of 
Diplomatic  Documents,  98.  See 
also  Associations  for  investigating 
Foreign  Affairs 

ConoUy,  Lancashire,  135 

Consolato  del  Mare,  151  and  note 

Constantino,  Russian  Viceroj%  8 

Conversations  Lexicon,  46 

Courier  Frangais,  108 

Crimean  War,  11,  12,  24,  123  ff. 

Def  ourny,  Abbe :  meets  Urquhart  at 
Rheims,  232;  on  the  delays  of 
Vatican  Council,  273;  on  attitude  of 
French  Bishops  to  Vatican  Coun- 
cil, 277;  promoter  of  the  Societj' 
of  the  (Euvre  Apostolique,  286,  287; 
introduces  deputation  of  Foreign 
Affairs  Committees  to  French 
Assembly,  290 

Delane  of  The  Times,  13 

Denbigh,  Lord,  233,  265 

Detroisier,  71 

Diobitch,  9,  10 

Diplomatic  College,  264,  268,  275 

Diplomatic  Review,  319 

Disraeli,  Benjamin,  23,  123 

Dunlop,  146 

Dupanloup,  JIgr. :  Urquhart's  friend- 
ship with,  23;  first  meeting  with, 
232;  failure  of,  to  support  appeal 
to  the  Pope,  239;  incites  Eastern 
Catholics  against  Decree  of  In- 
fallibility, 256,  257;  Urquhart's 
interview  with,  in  Rome,  260,  261 ; 
Pope  receives  submission  of,  276 

Eastern  Bishops,  255,  256,  259,  261 
East  India  Company,  report  of,  on 
Afghan  War,  143 

Fielden,  72 

Fischel,  Edward,  133 

Foreign  Affairs  Committees:  forma- 
tion of,  120,  124  //.;  Urquhart's 
training  of,  125/..  ."{lO;  character  of 
members  of,  134  /J.;  organisation  of, 
136  /J.;  insist  on  publication  of 
suppressed  despatches  on  Afghan 
Wai-,  142  ff.;  issue  addresses  to 
soldiers  and  sailors  about  to  sail 
on  Chinese  Exj)editiou,  148,  149; 
address  the  Emperor  of  the  French 
on  Declaration  of  Paris,  153,  154; 
set  forth  dangers  of  Congress  of 
Brussels,  160  /.;  petition  Disraeli 
against  representation  of  England 


at  Congress  of  Brussels,  160; 
manifold  activities  of,  162;  attitude 
of  Press  towards,  163  note  ;  failure 
of,  due  partly  to  Urquhart's  own 
charactei',  172  ff.;  respond  to  teach- 
ing on  Canon  Law,  209;  lead  men 
from  Secularism  and  Atheism,  289; 
deputation  of,  to  French  Assembly, 
290,  291 

France:  attitude  of  England  and 
Russia  towards,  104;  attitude  of, 
towards  Vatican  Council,  239; 
Catholic  Church  in,  277;  bitterness 
of,  towards  England,  291 ;  dislike  of 
"National    Tribunals,"    291. 

Franchi,  Mgr. :  Urquhart's  friendship 
with,  23,  233,  263  and  note,  268, 
269;  entrusted  with  Memorandum 
to  the  Pope,  274;  goes  to  Constan- 
tinople as  Papal  Envoy,  285; 
approves  of  "  National  Tribunals," 
291 

Franco-Prussian  War,  153,  154 

Frankpledge,  306,  307 

Free  Press,  135,  147,  319 

French  Catholics,  Urquhart  gains  a 
hearing  from,  231,  232 

Frost  the  Chartist,  89,  98  note,  170, 
171  note 

Fuad  Pasha,  246 

Fyler,  George,  81,  86,  87 

Garibaldi,  194,  199,  310  ff. 

German     Customs    Union,     25,    45, 

215 
Ghica,  I.,  63  note 
Ghizzi,  Cardinal,  189 
Gillies,  Dr.,  190 
Gioberti,  191.  202 
Gladstone,  W.  E.,  155  ff.,  U2 
Gratry,   Pere,   22,   133;  Les  Sources, 

207 
Greece,  Urquhart's  connection  with, 

7,  8 
Greek  War  of  Independence,  7,  44 
Gregory    XVI.,   Pope,  22,   180  note, 

184  note,  219 
Grenoble,  209 
fJrotius,  207 
Grove,  Mary  Ann,  100 
Guizot,  115 

Hadford,  145,  146 

Hamilton,  Abbe,  189,  190 

Harney,  Julius,  93 

Hassoun,    Patriarch,    248,    276    and 

note 
Haynau.  84 
Herald,  (Jl  note,  200,  295 


INDEX 


325 


Hetheiington,  Henry,  71,  94 
Holy  Alliance,  223 
Hyacinth,  Pere,  253  note 

Ireland,  203  note 

Italian  Unity,  198  ff. 

Italian  War  of  Liberation,  194,  205 

Jesuits,  179,  264;  ttudes,  287 
Jullion,  Pere,  232,  233,  238,  286 
Juvigny,  209,  232 

Kaye,  143,  146 
Keighley,  161 

Lamington,  Lord,  174  note 

Las  Casas,  295 

Law  of  Nations,  207,  208,  253 

Lebanon,  Mount,  68 

Le  Play:  Urquhart's  friendship  with, 
23,  207  and  note ;  agrees  with 
Urquhart  in  welcoming  the  Coun- 
cil, 216;  studies  social  life  in  the 
East,  240;  Refornie  Sociale,  241; 
criticises  Urquhart,  242,  243;  in- 
augurates Union  de  la  Paix  Sociale, 
287;  introduces  deputation  of 
Foreign  Affairs  Committees  to 
French  Assembly,  290 

Lieven,  Countess  (later  Princess),  10, 
99  note 

Louis  Philippe,  14 

Lowery,  Robert:  a  "Foreign  Policy 
Man,"  92;  member  of  Chartist 
Convention,  95;  Monteith's  opinion 
of,  96;  goes  on  deputation  to 
Paris,  105;  interviews  Faucher, 
editor  of  Courier  Fraii^ais,  108, 
109;  letter  of,  from  Paris  to  Chair- 
man of  Newcastle  Committee, 
108  ff.;  letter  of,  to  Chairman  of 
London  Committee,  110,  111;  dis- 
couraged about  future  of  Com- 
mittees, 116.  117 

Lucca,  Cardinal  de,  263 

Macclesfield  Foreign  Affairs'  Com- 
mittee, 266,  271 

McNeil,  Sir  John,  24  note 

Mahmoud  II.,  8ultan  of  Turkey,  9, 
44,  45 

Malan,  Caesar,  33 

Manchester,  84 

Manin,  Daniele.  192 

Manley,  General,  190 

Manning,  Archbishop,  233,  237 

Marriott,  Charles,  226  note 

Marx,  Karl,  130  7iote,  270 

Marylebone,  85 


Maupied,  Dr.,  254,  255 

Mayence,  Bishop  of,  233 

Mazzini,  194,  195  ff.  and  note 

Mchemet  Ali,  11,  104 

Merraillod,  Auxiliary  Bishop  of 
(Jeneva:  a  friend  and  ally  of  Urqu- 
hart, 233;  sketch  of,  244  ?io<e  ;  sends 
Monteith  on  his  mission  to  the 
East,  249;  supports  Urquhart  in 
Rome,  262 

Metropolitan  Trades  Union,  94 

Metternich,  6,  7,  14 

Middle  Ages,  Urquhart's  love  for,  211, 
212 

Mignet,  114 

Mill,  John  Stuart,  133,  152,  153 

Milosh,  Prince,  of  Servia,  48,  197 

Molesworth,  Sir  William,  72 

Monteith,  Robert:  friendship  with 
Urquhart,  62;  aids  Urquhart's 
work  among  working  men,  81 : 
opinion  of  Cardo,  94;  opinion  of 
Lowery,  96;  describes  Urquhart's 
campaign  among  working  men, 
99,  100;  assists  in  founding  Com- 
mittees, 135;  a  Catholic,  233;  goes 
on  a  mission  to  the  Armenian 
Synod,  248,  249;  in  Rome  during 
the  Council,  256;  describes  Christ- 
mas at  the  Vatican  in  1870,  278 

Morning  Post,  105 

Mozeley,  226  note 

National  Tribunals,  289  fj. 

National     Union     of     the    Working 

Nevers,  Bishop  of,  262,  263 
Newcastle  Foreign  Affairs  Committee, 

144 
Newman,  .T.  II..  226 
Noe,  Comte  de.  111 
Normanby,  Lord,  88,  91 
Northern  Liberator,  105,  107  note 
Northern  Political  Union,  93,  96 

O'Brien,   Bronterre,    86,   87,    01    and 

note 
O'Connor,  Feargus,  91,  116 
(Eiwre  Apostoliqne,  209,  2S6,  287 
OUivier,  Emile,  239 
Oxford,  34,  44,  226  note 
Oxford,  Bishoj)  of,  225 

Palmerston,  Lord:  character  of,  12  //  , 
Urquhart's  views  on,  12  ff.;  sends 
Urquhart  to  Constantinople,  48; 
hostility  of,  to  Urquhart,  52  /f.; 
recalls  Urquhart  from  Constanti. 
nople,    54;   conduct    of,    in     Vixen 


326 


DAVID  URQUHABT 


incident,  57,  58;  Urquhart's  quarrel 
with,  over  Turkish  Commercial 
Treaty,  70;  antipathy  of,  to  Louis 
Philippe,  104;  impeachment  of,  121 ; 
charge  against,  in  matter  of 
Afghan  despatches,  144 

Papacj-,  the:  Urquhart's  view-  on, 
22,  220  ^. ;  temporal  power  of,  de- 
pendent on  law,  180,  237,  238; 
Russia's  greatest  stumbling-block, 
195 

Papal  Infallibility,  dogma  of,  211, 
253,  259 

Paris,  Declaration  of,  26,  142,  149  If. 

Peel,  14,  318 

Philippe,  Pere,  232 

Pisani,  51 

Pitra,  Cardinal,  263 

Pius  IX. :  Urquhart's  hope  in,  189  ft- ; 
reforming  ideas  of,  dispelled,  190  //. ; 
popular  feeling  towards,  in  Italy, 
198  note ;  calls  a  General  Council. 
210,  211;  attempts  to  prejudice 
him  against  Urquhart,  264,  265; 
Urquhart's  audience  of,  265  fj. ; 
Urquhart's  impressions  of,  268; 
interest  of,  in  Urquhart's  cause 
268;  sends  Urquhart  a  brief  of 
thanks  for  Desolation  de  la 
Chretiente,  283 

Place,  Francis,  71 

Polish  Rebellion  of  1830,  8 

Ponsonby,  Lord :  opinion  of  Urqu- 
hart, 23;  friendship  with  Urquhart, 
48,  51  note;  disagreement  with 
Urquhart  in  Constantinople,  50/7. ; 
letter  of,  to  Palmerston  on  Cir- 
cassia,  55,  56 ;  Letters  on  the  Eastern 
Question,  123  note 

Poore,  Mayor,  135  and  note,  301  ff. 

Postulatmn  de  JRe  Militari  et  Bello, 
259  note,  260,  269,  272,  313 

Prokesch,  Baron,  284  note 

Prussia,  Urquhart's  views  vn,  5 

Raniiere,  Pere,  287,  288,  203 

Reformation,  223 

Reschid  Mohammed,  Pasha,  45 

Rheims,  209,  232 

Richards,  John,  92.  100,  105,  lOl) 

Rickmans worth,  137,  174  note 

Roebuck,  Thomas,  72,  143 

Rodez,  Bishop  of:  friendsliip  with 
Urquhart,  233,  262;  mentions 
Appeal  to  the  Pope  in  liis  Lonten 
Pastoral,  237;  mentioned  in  Mrs. 
Urquhart's  diary.  270;  on  the 
delays  of  the  ("ouneil.  276 

Roh,  Pero.  262,  263,  284  noti 

RoUand,  Major,  135,  136 


Rome,  Church  of:  alone  untouched 
by  Russian  diplomacy,  184;  em- 
bodies Urquhart's  hopes  for  the 
world,  213,  274;  embodiment  of 
law,  221 ;  Urquhart's  views  on 
connection  of,  with  the  East,  253, 
254;  resumes  diplomatic  relations 
j  with  Sublime  Porte,  285  and  note 
;   Rome,  condition  of,  in  1870,  277,  278 

Rosmini,  191 
I   Ross,  David,  of  Bladensburgh :  works 
I        for   Urquhart  in   Northern   to^^^lS, 
81;    assists   in   founding    Commit- 
tees,   135;    anecdote    of    Urquhart 
related    by,    137   note ;    works  for 
Urquhart's  plans  in  Rome,  189 
Rule,  David,  134,  160,  161,  290 
Russell,  Lord  John,  72 
Russia:    Urquhart's  views   on,  2   fl., 
47;    hostility  to    Entente   Cordiale, 
104;    connection    of,    with    Italian 
Revolution,  197,  198;  mj'sterv  of, 
214,  215 
:    Rustem  Bey,  231,  246,  264 

Salisbury  Times,  304  ff. 
I    Sangelgian,  Abbe,  275 
!    Sardinia,  202 

Schools  of  Public  Law,  136,  150 

Schroeder,  Baron,  231,  248 

Sebastopol,  11,  12,  124 

Servia,  48,  68,  197,  198 

Shepperd,  William,  121  and  note 

Sinclair,  Sir  George,  62,  20:{  note 

Singleton,  William,  132,  289,  299 

Sraiih,  A.,  152 

Smith,  Gerald,  44 

Sociefcj-  for  the  Propagation  of  the 
Gospel,  147 

Soreze  College,  20  note 

Stafford,  l.M,  147,  148 

Stanley  of  Alderley,  Lord,  IjO  note, 
263 

Stapleton,  A.  G.,  133 

Stephens,  Chartist  Leader,  130,  160 

Stobart,  G.,  145 

Stonyhurst,  179  ff. 

Strossmayer,  Bishop,  261 

Stuart,  Lord  Dudley,  87 

Suffield,  Father,  253  note 

Syllabus,  212 

Szulcheski,  196 

Taylor,  Sir  Herbert,  44,  197 

Taylor,  Dr.  John;  denounces  Foreign 
Policy  of  Government,  915;  arrest 
of,  94;  interview  with  LIrquhart, 
100,  101 ;  death  of,  101  note 

Taylor,  Colonel  Pringlc.  86,  102 

Thiers,  24,  104,  115 


INDEX 


327 


Thomas,  Chartist,  105 

Th.. mason.  Chartist,  92,  96,  97,  100, 
105 

Times,  newspaper,  13,  58,  200 

Toqueville,  A.  de,  109 

Turkey:  Urquhart's  views  on,  2  if.; 
residence  of  Urquhart  in,  45,  46 

Turkish  bath,  the,  174  note,  175  and 
note,  251 

Turlcish  Commercial  Treaty:  Urqu- 
hart draws  up,  46;  conceded  by 
Government,  48,  49;  increases 
Urquhart's  influence  in  Turkey, 
52 ;  made  public,  58,  59  and  note  ; 
Urquhart's  quarrel  with  Palmerston 
over,  70 

Turkisli  Government,  65  Jf.,  245,  246 

Turks,  Urquhart's  intimacy  with,  22 

Ullathome,  Dr.,  190 

United  States,  151,  152 

Uukiar  Skelessi,  Treat}^  of,  47 

Urquhart,  Charles,  34 

Urquhart,  David:  views  of,  on  inter- 
national politics,  2  ff. ;  on  Russia, 
2  if.,  47,  167;  on  Turkey,  2  ff.;  on 
Prussia,  5,  286;  on  Prussian  Com- 
mercial League,  25  and  note ;  on 
Lord  Palmerston,  12  ff.;  on 
Medieval  and  Eastern  methods  of 
covemment,  73  ff.;  on  IVliddle 
Ages,  77;  on  government,  90;  on 
Blockade  of  Mesico,  102,  103;  on 
dialectic,  102;  on  Treaty  of  July  15, 
1840,  105;  on  failure  of  associa- 
tions for  Investigating  Foreign 
Affairs,  117;  on  Declaration  of 
Paris,  150  ff. ;  on  Right  of  Search, 
150;  on  Congress  of  Brussels,  159, 
160;  on  Catholic  Church,  182  ff., 
218  //.,  293;  on  diplomatic  training, 
188,  189;  on  Russian  influence  in 
Italy,  194,  195;  on  Italian  inde- 
pendence, 201,  202;  on  the  syllabus, 
212;  on  dangers  overshadowing 
Europe,  213,  215;  on  the  Oxford 
Movement,  226;  on  Temporal 
Sovereignty  of  Pope,  237,  238,  278; 
on  Papal  Infallibility,  238;  connec- 
tion of,  with  Greece,  7,  8;  with 
Turldsh  Commercial  Treaty,  46, 
48,  52,  58  ff. ;  with  Circassia,  54  ff. ; 
with  Chartists,  70,  71,  82  ff.;  rela- 
tions of,  with  Catholics,  22,  23; 
with  Sultan  of  Turkey,  44,  48 ;  with 
Lord  Ponsonby,  48,  51  note  ;  with 
Monteith,  62  and  note  ;  with  work- 
ing men,  81  ff.,  169;  with  Le  Play, 
240  ff. ;  with  Eastern  Catholics,  245, 
250,   258,   259;    describes   visit   to 


;M.  Thiers,  111  ff.;  formation  of 
Foreign  Affairs  Committees,  125. 
126;  aims  of  Foreign  Affairs  Com- 
mittees, 141;  visit  to  Stonyhurst, 
179  ff.;  audience  with  the  Pope, 
265;  birth  and  early  t)ducation  of, 
20;  matriculation  of,  at  Oxford, 
34;  character  of,  19,  21,  35  ff.,  175, 
176,  229,  243,  298;  popular  esti- 
mate of,  21,  22;  attracts  notice  of 
William  IV.,  44;  sent  on  secret 
mission  to  Albania,  45;  lives  in 
Turkey,  45  ff.;  appointed  Secre- 
tary to  Embassy  at  Constantinople, 
48 ;  diplomatic  career  of,  49  ff. ;  lives 
in  Turkish  villages,  51;  visits  the 
Caucasus,  68 ;  reputation  of,  in  the 
East,  22;  influence  of  the  East  on, 
30  ff.,  64  ff.;  Spirit  of  the  East, 
63  note,  65;  Turkey  and  Tier  Re- 
sources, 23,  46;  Progress  of  Russia, 
24;  Enrjland  and  Russia,  4:1;  re- 
called from  Constantinople,  54; 
conduct  of,  in  Vixen  incident,  57, 
58;  the  Portfolio,  8,  68;  views  of 
statesmen  on,  22,  23;  travels  of,  44, 
45,  121 ;  description  of,  b;^^  a  Polish 
lady,  41  ff.;  religious  position  of, 
32,  225,  227  ff.;  belief  of,  in  the 
power  of  man  to  be  right,  26  ff.; 
campaign  of,  in  favour  of  Inter- 
national justice,  61,  62;  urged  to 
enter  Parliament,  62,  63;  laiow- 
ledge  of  the  East,  65  //. ;  sympathy 
of,  with  labour  troubles,  69  ff.; 
nominated  Torj-  candidate  for 
Marylebone,  70,  85;  attitude  of, 
towards  working  men,  73,  74 ; 
abhorrence  of,  for  factory  system, 
75  ff.;  Wealth  and  Want,  74  iiote, 
123  note;  takes  action  on  Chartist 
plot,  87  ff.;  interview  with  Dr. 
Taylor,  100,  101;  efforts  of,  to 
avert  war  between  England  and 
France,  105  ff.;  visits  M.  Coletti, 
1 14  and  note  ;  interview  with  M. 
Nuber,  114,  115;  class  of  mind 
attracted  by,  118;  elected  Inde- 
pendent Member  for  Sto.fford,  120; 
Parliamentary  career  of,  121 ; 
speaks  on  motion  for  impeachment 
of  Palmerston,  121;  visits  Mount 
Lebanon,  68,  121;  Pillars  of 
Hercules,  121  ff. ;  The  Lebanon,  121 ; 
Three  Religio-Politicai  Systems  of 
Europe,  183;  marriage  of,  120; 
Constitutional  Remedies,  125,  128; 
Free  Press,  319;  method  of,  in 
dealing  with  men,  127  ff.,  133,  134, 
137  //. ;  W.  Singleton's  first  meeting 


328 


DAVID  URQUHART 


with,  131  •". ;  letters  to  working  men, 
13s,  13:i;  working  men's  apprecia- 
tion of,  139,  140;  final  rupture  of, 
with  Cliurch  of  England,  147; 
reviews  Ward's  Ideal  of  a  Christian 
Church,  220,  227:  influence  of,  on 
success  of  Committees,  167;  aliena- 
tion of,  from  popular  ideas,  172; 
letter  of,  to  iJaniele  Mania,  192, 
201;  visits  Mazzini,  196  //.;  ostra- 
cised by  the  Press,  200;  life  of,  in 
Savoy,  205.  206 :  Diplomatic  Bevieiv, 
241,  294,  319:  introduction  of,  to 
Canon  Law,  208.  209,  232  fl.;  Fere 
JuUion  \Trites  to  ]\Ianning  about, 
233;  sympathy  of,  for  the  Pope, 
244;  appeal  to  the  Pope,  233  ff., 
237,  239.  244.  245;  works  to  arouse 
interest  of  Ottoman  Government 
in  Vatican  Council,  246  ff.;  letter 
to  >Sultan,  247:  in  Rome,  250  ff.; 
position  in  Rome  during  the  Coun- 
cil, 255,  262,  263  ff.;  brings  Eastern 
and  Western  Bishops  together,  255 ; 
leaves  memorandum  of  "work  to 
be  done"  with  IMgr.  Eranchi,  274, 
275  ;  Desolation  de  la  Chrc'ticHt'^, 
279,  2S0. 283.  284  note ;  lays  scheme 
for  National  Tribunal  before  French 
lisliops,  291;  Four  Wars  of  French 
Revolution,  279;  Patriarch  Hassoun, 
258  note  ;  the  Rome,  294 ;  attempts 
of  French  (iovernment  to  stop 
propaganda  of,  291,  292;  returns  to 
England,  1874. 161;  addresses  meet- 
ing at  Keiqhlev,  161,  294;  last 
years  of.  294:'  death  of,  294; 
epitaph.  30<);  chief  works  of,  319; 
chronological  list  of  chief  events  in 
life  of,  320  ff. 
Urquhart.  Harriet  Angelina,  marriage 
of,  120;  account  of  Lord  Ponson- 
by's  reconciliation  with  her  hus- 
band, 51  note ;  on  Italian  and 
English  Press,  199;  importanie  of, 


to  her  husband's  cause,  252; 
writes  to  her  son  from  Rome,  255, 
256;  extracts  from  diary  of,  263; 
describes  deputation  of  English 
working  men  to  French  Assembly, 
290;  Mrs.  Bishop's  Life  of,  266; 
letter  of,  272,  273 
Urquhart,  Henrietta,  20  vote 
Urquhart,  Margaret,  mother  of  David 
Urquhart,  20  7iote,  33  and  note.  34, 
44 

Vatican  Council:  Pope  announces  to 
assembled  bishops  his  intention 
of  holding.  210;  dread  of,  in 
diplomatic  circles,  211;  Urquhart's 
hope  in,  211  ff.,  216,  217;  Le  Play's 
opinion  on  usefulness  of,  242; 
Urquhart's  connection  with,  253; 
dispersion  of,  273 

Vattel,  96,  97,  125,  207,  311 

Venice,  191,  192,  193 

Victor  Emmanuel,  194 

Vixen,  ship,  54,  57,  58  note,  61 

Ward,  Robert,  Maritime  Law,  150 
and  note 

Ward,  William  George,  226  and  note, 
227 

Warden,  Benjamin.  Chartist:  op- 
posed to  Physical  Force  policy,  87 ; 
"Foreign  Policy"  man,  92;  Urqu- 
hart's influence  on,  94;  speaks  at 
Carlisle  on  French  crisis,  105,  106; 
denounces  Palmerston,  106 

Wellington,  Duke  of,  47 

Westrup,  86.  87,  92,  95 

White,  Sir  AVilliam,  46  note 

William  IV.,  44,  49,  57,  58 

Winters! ow  Land  Court.  301 

Women's  Radical  and  Female  Politi- 
cal Union  of  Birmingham,  100 

Zollverein.  See  iinder  German  Cus- 
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